Jochen Michels, Director of Public Affairs, Europe, Kaspersky
Kaspersky has actively participated in the Internet Governance Forum, the IGF, for many years, reflecting its commitment to the IGF’s mission of maximizing digital opportunities and addressing digital risks and challenges. Following a genuine multistakeholder approach, Kaspersky collaborates with governments, intergovernmental organizations, civil society including academia, the private sector, and the technical community.
About the IGF
The IGF is a renowned annual event, convened by the UN Secretary-General and hosted by a different host country each year. This year, the 19th IGF will be held in Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, under the theme “Building our Multistakeholder Digital Future.” Each year, the IGF annual meeting brings together stakeholders from around the world to discuss the most critical and urgent internet governance issues, exchange information, and share effective policies and best practices. The structure of an annual meeting is comprehensive, featuring community-organized workshops, open forums highlighting the work of international organizations, sessions reviewing the IGF’s intersessional work, as well as dedicated tracks for parliamentary discussions, youth engagement, and high-level sessions.
The second important pillar of the IGF is the so-called intersessional work, which occurs between annual meetings. Throughout the year, the IGF community – comprised of all involved stakeholder groups – engages in several substantive activities on internet governance. These include organizing workshops and meetings, developing and discussing policy papers, and presenting them at the annual IGF meeting. This ongoing work is structured through Best Practice Forums, Dynamic Coalitions, and Policy Networks, focusing on critical topics like artificial intelligence, internet fragmentation, cybersecurity, and more.
Cooperation and Comprehensive Participation
What sets the IGF apart from many other global conferences and processes is the collaborative, participatory approach that offers all stakeholders the opportunity to contribute ideas and support in shaping the IGF. IGF meetings are designed in an open and inclusive process, with the involvement of the whole IGF community. Coordinated by the Multistakeholder Advisory Group (MAG) and the IGF Secretariat, this process includes various calls for feedback – such as stock-taking on the previous annual meeting and suggestions for improvements, thematic input to guide the main topics and sub-themes for the next meeting, workshop and session proposals, as well as multiple rounds of open consultations. This offers all interested parties a wide range of participation opportunities, which Kaspersky has made good use of over the past years.
Reasons for Kaspersky’s Engagement
Kaspersky's structured involvement in the IGF began in 2021, following the participation of team members as attendees at the IGF 2020 in Berlin. This engagement resulted in the organization of a workshop on “The Future of Human Augmentation: Gain or 'Cyber-Pain’” and in the presentation and discussion of numerous multi-stakeholder initiatives to strengthen cybersecurity and resilience and to protect particularly vulnerable groups at a booth in the IGF village. One of Kaspersky's fundamental principles is to promote international cooperation, involving all stakeholder groups in order to sustainably increase cybersecurity and resilience – locally, regionally and globally. This applies not only to cybersecurity, but to all topics and facets of digitization and internet governance. For these reasons, Kaspersky has decided to deepen its participation intensively in the IGF processes and discussions, both in the annual meetings and in vital intersessional work. Kaspersky is keen to contribute its knowledge and experience to the discussions, explore new concepts, understand the opinions and positions of other stakeholder groups and learn from other stakeholders involved in the entire process.
Ethical Principals on the Use of AI in Cybersecurity
One example and important milestone for Kaspersky was the development of ethical principles for the use of AI in cybersecurity. Kaspersky initially developed such principles both internally and in collaboration with partners, then discussed them with the expert community at the IGF Annual Meeting 2023 in Kyoto, Japan. Feedback from the community was important in order to review and further develop our own principles, but also to present these principles as best practice and encourage further discussion. Some of the results of the workshop were included in the IGF Kyoto Messages, cf. page 62: “The use of AI and machine learning may offer ways of strengthening cybersecurity and resilience. However, that use must be responsible and sustainable. Ethical principles can provide guidelines to help cybersecurity developers and users understand, assess and consider the application of these new technologies. Such principles are best developed in global multistakeholder discussions and should emphasize human control, transparency, safety, and privacy.”
Online Child Protection – Secure AI Development – Critical Infrastructure Protection
This year, Kaspersky has further expanded its activities and is organizing three workshops at the IGF to shed light on current cybersecurity and resilience challenges from different perspectives. The topics are: (i) Multistakeholder Cooperation for Online Child Protection; (ii) Cybersecurity in AI: Balancing Innovation and Risks; and (iii) Universal Standards for Digital Infrastructure Resiliency. In collaboration with experts from diverse regions and stakeholder groups, Kaspersky aims to discuss possible concepts, exchange best practices and develop new approaches for multistakeholder cooperation in these areas. The underlying principle across all topics is that digitization offers great opportunities and contributes to achieving many global development goals. However, to ensure sustainable and secure digitization, it is essential to both seize these opportunities and address potential risks and threats. This is a shared responsibility of all stakeholders involved, requiring each to actively contribute. Only together will it be possible to seize the opportunities in a targeted manner and counter risks appropriately. The IGF serves as an ideal platform for these discussions and Kaspersky is eager and happy to participate in this dialog in order to make meaningful contributions, broaden its horizons, and learn from others.
