Statement regarding OECD Declaration on Government Access to Personal Data held by Private Sector Entities

Today members of the CSISAC Steering Committee attending the OECD Ministerial in Gran Canaria, Spain released a statement regarding the new OECD Declaration on Government Access to Personal Data Held by Private Sector Entities.

WPF Executive Director is on site in Gran Canaria and made a formal statement to the ministers during the adoption meeting regarding the need for open processes that are inclusive of civil society. “It is essential in our challenging times to ensure that the voice of civil society is present in multistakeholder processes,” said Executive Director Pam Dixon. “We acknowledge that conversations can be sensitive, and require discretion. However, civil society must not be excluded. We have every confidence that the OECD leadership can adapt existing due process procedures to encompass such sensitive conversations.”

CSISAC Steering Committee Member Statement regarding OECD Declaration on Government Access to Personal Data held by Private Sector Entities (PDF, 2 pages)

Posted December 14, 2022 in Uncategorized

New Report: Risky Analysis: Assessing and Improving AI Governance Tools

We are pleased to announce the publication of a new WPF report, “Risky Analysis: Assessing and Improving AI Governance Tools.” This report sets out a definition of AI governance tools, documents why and how these tools are critically important for trustworthy AI, and where these tools are around the world. The report also documents problems in some AI governance tools themselves, and suggests pathways to improve AI governance tools and create an evaluative environment to measure their effectiveness. AI systems should not be deployed without simultaneously evaluating the potential adverse impacts of such systems and mitigating their risks, and most of the world agrees about the need to take precautions against the threats posed. The specific tools and techniques that exist to evaluate and measure AI systems for their inclusiveness, fairness, explainability, privacy, safety and other trustworthiness issues — called in the report collectively AI governance tools – can improve such issues. While some AI governance tools provide reassurance to the public and to regulators, the tools too often lack meaningful oversight and quality assessments. Incomplete or ineffective AI governance tools can create a false sense of confidence, cause unintended problems, and generally undermine the promise of AI systems. The report contains rich background details, use cases, potential solutions to the problems discussed in the report, and a global index of AI Governance Tools.
National IDs Around the World — Interactive map

About this Data Visualization: This interactive map displays the presence...
Report: From the Filing Cabinet to the Cloud: Updating the Privacy Act of 1974

This comprehensive report and proposed bill text is focused on the Privacy Act of 1974, an important and early Federal privacy law that applies to the government sector and some contractors. The Privacy Act was written for the 1970s information era -- an era that was characterized by the use of mainframe computers and filing cabinets. Today's digital information era looks much different than the '70s: smart phones are smarter than the old mainframes, and documents are now routinely digitized and stored and perhaps even analyzed in the cloud, among many other changes. The report focuses on why the Privacy Act needs an update that will bring it into this century, and how that could look and work. This work was written by Robert Gellman, and informed by a two-year multi-stakeholder process.