Invited by Cybertech Tel Aviv 2018, UN CTED of the UN Security Council and ICT4Peace presented the joint initiative Tech Against Terrorism in a high-level panel on 31 January 2018 in Tel Aviv. Yossi Vardi, the well-known IT entrepreneur, participated in the panel and endorsed the initiative of the UN Security Council. The session was moderated by David Scharia, Director at UN CTED and included Erin Saltman from Facebook and from ICT4Peace Adam Hadley and Leah Chauhan (Director and Senior Researcher at Techagainstterrorism) as well as Daniel Stauffacher.
Tech Against Terrorism (TaT), was launched by the United Nations Counter-terrorism Executive Directorate together with its implementing partner, the ICT4Peace Foundation, pursuant to UN Security Council Resolutions, and aims to reach out to the private ICT sector worldwide and works with large companies such as the founders of the Global Internet Forum to Counter-Terrorism (GIFCT), Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Twitter, as well as with small start-ups like Justpaste.it or large telecom companies like Telefonica. The mandate thus is to develop innovative public-private partnerships that support industry-led self-regulation in tackling the terrorist exploitation of the internet whilst respecting human rights. Our scope is global and covers all technologies that have the potential of exploitation by terrorists. The main activity involves working with global tech sector to share best practice (policy, guidelines, learning materials, practical workshops) within the industry and with governments. As part of ongoing capacity-building the initiative also develop tools and databases to support improved intelligence-sharing and understanding of the risk of exploitation. It has developed a “Knowledge Sharing Platform” (KSP) – the beta of which was launched at a special meeting of the UN Counter-Terrorism Committee in November 2017. This resource is a password-protected website for use by companies that have been accepted as members of the Tech Against Terrorism initiative and/or are members of the GIFCT.
The initiative will also seek to maximise the benefits of other current initiatives by the UN. The ICT sector can play a positive role in countering the narratives of terrorist organisations by supporting credible voices. Several companies have already made great strides in developing policies and removing content that violates their terms of service. It is hoped they could further strengthen their use of artificial intelligence to review content, while respecting international human rights standards.
The work on Tech against Terrorism of UN CTED and ICT4Peace was recognised by the UN Security Council by its recent Resolutions in December 2017.