SM Teo Chee Hean at the Asia Tech x Singapore (ATxSG) Summit Social 2022 & More News Here

Integrated, Open and Secure Tech for a Better Future

H.E. Airlangga Hartarto
Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs, Indonesia

H.E. Abdul Mutalib Yusof
Minister of Transport and Communications, Brunei

H.E. Fabio Faria
Minister of Communications, Brazil

H.E. Sandiaga Uno
Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy, Indonesia

H.E. Andres Sutt
Minister of Entrepreneurship and Information Technology, Estonia

H.E. Khairy Jamaluddin
Minister of Health, Malaysia

My colleague Minister Josephine Teo,

Excellencies,
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

I very a lot wished to be with you in individual, however because of a late change in my schedule, I’m addressing you from Hong Kong.

The disruption from COVID-19 accelerated the adoption of digital applied sciences, enabling us to remain linked by means of telecommuting, video-conferencing, e-learning, on-line purchasing, digital fee and on-demand leisure. This has formed the “new normal” of the post-COVID world.

Digital expertise has now penetrated virtually every part we do. It has change into more and more indispensable and important to the method we organise our societies, conduct enterprise, and dwell our lives. The advantages and alternatives are large.

At the identical time, necessary new questions are actually being raised that didn’t function so prominently when digital expertise was in its infancy, nor even because it was growing and rising quickly. However, its omnipresence at the moment raises three units of questions which we, as international tech leaders and coverage shapers, have to grapple with:

i. First, will the digital world change into extra built-in or divided?

ii. Second, will we obtain the promise of a “flat” digital world with open entry for all, or come below the dominance and market energy of some huge expertise firms?

iii. Third, how can we stability between ever extra pervasive and seamless entry and the want for stronger safety and privateness?

These aren’t simply questions on technological innovation which have been the driving pressure in the trade. They are necessary coverage issues and selections, which we have to make in our personal societies, and collectively in our interconnected world.

Let me elaborate on every of those.

At the daybreak of the web, our on-line world was portrayed as a brand new realm untethered from the state. It was posited to be borderless – boundaries that exist in the bodily world could be eradicated and data could be democratised and made accessible at all instances.

Since then, enormously artistic people and tech firms have certainly expanded the digital house exponentially to each nook of the earth, crossing oceans, deserts and borders. However, every nation does have its sovereign considerations. Countries have their very own views on system safety necessities, knowledge entry and management, content material requirements, overseas interference and subversion, provide chain resilience, in addition to the reserving of company revenues and taxation.

We now have a higher understanding of the manipulative energy of knowledge and data. Consumers and nations are actually asking for stronger safety concerning the accountable use of knowledge, together with higher oversight of digital actions, corresponding to content material requirements for ethical and social concord causes.

Such disparate regulatory initiatives may splinter the digital world. Quite aside from the lack of consensus on how to attract up the guidelines and rules globally, lack of belief amongst the stakeholders additionally exacerbates the state of affairs. Countries may resolve to make their very own guidelines, or congregate into completely different blocs. This is already starting to occur. Companies would face a fragmented panorama throughout completely different markets, and shoppers would face hurdles or find yourself with the inconvenience of paying greater costs as they search for built-in international companies.

We ought to work in the direction of international consensus on guidelines, norms and requirements, to facilitate steady, safe and constant on-line interactions throughout societies. Consumers and companies will profit from diminished compliance prices, simpler market entry, and higher and extra inexpensive companies.

Even if the main nations aren’t capable of attain consensus, small states do have the company to behave. For instance, like-minded nations can work collectively on Digital Economy Agreements (DEAs) that align digital guidelines and requirements. These will facilitate higher interoperability with protocols, gateways and bridges between digital programs for cross border digital commerce and knowledge flows. Singapore has concluded 4 DEAs with 5 nations – Australia, Chile, the Republic of Korea (ROK), New Zealand, and the UK. The pluri-lateral Digital Economy Partnership Agreement (DEPA) which began between Singapore, New Zealand and Chile, now has Republic of Korea, China and Canada wanting to hitch. We hope others, whether or not in ASEAN or past, may also be a part of DEPA or formalise digital agreements.

The second query is whether or not we are going to obtain the promise of a “flat” digital world with open entry for all, or come below the dominance and market energy of some huge tech firms.

The introduction of the Internet promised a democratised digital house, the place anybody may come on-line and freely talk contemporary concepts and change various viewpoints. However, over time, the community impact, amplified particularly by the instantaneous energy and attain of the web, has meant {that a} handful of huge tech companies, the most revolutionary and entrepreneurial ones, have amassed immense affect. The social media platforms and search engines like google and yahoo join suppliers to shoppers, app builders to gadget house owners, and advertisers to focused audiences. The platform enterprise mannequin multiplies the community impact additional, main typically to ‘winner takes all’ outcomes. The digital giants now kind the infrastructural spine of an ever-expanding tech universe, serving as the interface of each interplay. If, for instance, we decline to share our knowledge or settle for cookies, what options will we realistically have, or will we be crowded out of the digital house?

The Big Tech firms have unmatched firepower, with market caps larger than the GDP of most nations. Together, 5 firms (Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Facebook and Microsoft) are projected to account for a fifth of all earnings accrued by the Standard & Poor’s 500 by 2030.¹

Apart from monetary firepower, these digital platforms now train substantial affect not solely over what shoppers see and purchase, but additionally what data and information get the widest dissemination and traction.

In the US, there may be now a re-examination of the US’s home legislation, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, that provides web firms safety in the US from legal responsibility for consumer generated content material disseminated on their platforms. There is now recognition of the want to guard the US public from disinformation for instance throughout elections or a pandemic, or stop dangerous or hateful content material from radicalising people and main them to excessive actions. Extreme views are discovering higher traction than reasonable ones, affecting social cohesion and consensus constructing as society turns into more and more polarised inside their very own echo chambers. In Europe and the remainder of the world, these questions have lengthy been requested. Each nation is discovering their very own solutions as they every have completely different considerations and issues, and their very own historical past, societal norms and legal guidelines.

The resolution is to work with, and never in opposition to Big Tech. These platforms are a pressure for good and the betterment of our lives, connecting underserved populations throughout the globe. They additionally drive investments in the direction of much more revolutionary options and purposes.

What authorities and shoppers wish to see is a greater stability between the energy of those firms, and their accountability and obligation to shoppers and society. Their founders started with a imaginative and prescient to serve shoppers and the society they function in. This is an opportune time to see how that is greatest completed now, with the trade now not in its infancy, however able of nice power and energy. With nice energy comes nice accountability.

Governments additionally have to work with Big Tech to plan governance rules and guidelines that replicate this new energy alignment and obtain higher stability. We additionally want coordination amongst governments for higher coherence throughout jurisdictions and protect alternative and optionality for shoppers.

The third query is how we strike a stability between having pervasive connectivity and seamless entry to digital companies whereas having stronger safety and privateness.

We can anticipate 5G, IoT, AI and the cloud to convey an avalanche of latest gadgets, purposes, and companies. The variety of IoT gadgets is projected to succeed in 64 billion globally, or about eight IoT gadgets on common for each individual on this globe by 2025. Data analytics and AI promise extra environment friendly and focused companies. More customers and gadgets may also open up extra potential vulnerabilities and improve the floor space for assault.

Just as we’ve constructing security codes or site visitors guidelines, we have to devise new methods to keep up the safety and resilience of our programs. This will encourage shoppers and companies to be extra keen and able to embrace the advantages of latest waves of technological innovation, with confidence and belief that they are going to be safe, and that their privateness will probably be revered and guarded.

We might want to work collectively – governments, trade gamers, huge and small, to develop new governance rules, frameworks, and requirements for the digital commons to make sure the safety of our programs and protect belief and confidence.

It won’t be straightforward to reach at a world consensus, however we should take steps to get there. Singapore helps the creation of such a multilateral order in our on-line world. We will work along with all stakeholders on this endeavour. At the United Nations, our Permanent Representative to the UN in New York has been given the honour and been elected as the Chair of the 5-year Open-Ended Working Group (OEWG) on the safety and use of ICT. We additionally contribute actively to the work of the GGE or Group of Governmental Experts.

Beyond frameworks and rules, we might want to set up goal, technical requirements for cybersecurity. Singapore launched the Cybersecurity Labelling Scheme for client IoT gadgets in 2020. This has seen good take up amongst native and multinational gadget producers. The four-level score system builds frequent understanding of the cybersecurity provisions of a specific product and offers confidence and option to shoppers.

Countries also needs to spend money on growing capabilities, in order that we’ve actual, concrete instruments to defend our our on-line world. This will put the insurance policies and rules we talk about into actual motion. Since 2014, Singapore has hosted INTERPOL’s Global Complex for Innovation, which is concentrated on growing new capabilities and instruments to fight worldwide crime. Cybercrime is certainly one of these. It has a Cyber Fusion Centre, which along with its regional cybercrime operations desk, has coordinated a number of large-scale, profitable operations in opposition to worldwide cybercrime syndicates. We have additionally been working by means of the ASEAN Cyber Capacity Programme and the ASEAN-Singapore Cybersecurity Centre of Excellence to spice up the area’s cyber safety capacities.

These three questions aren’t a criticism of the digital revolution or tech firms. In truth, they’re the very reverse. They are testimony to the success of the digital revolution and the nice strides and contributions of our tech firms. The digital world has grown so huge and pervasive that we now have to have this dialog between governments, companies, and shoppers to evaluate whether or not our insurance policies are nonetheless match for function, and the way greatest to go about realising our collective imaginative and prescient of making a extra built-in, open and safe digital world.

I wish to thank all our members for sharing their deep expertise and insights on how we are able to handle these points. Singapore hopes to be a trusted and helpful platform for such conversations and for international consensus to be constructed.

I want all of you fulfilling and significant discussions. Thank you very a lot and have an pleasurable dinner. 

 

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[1] https://techmonitor.ai/boardroom/power-of-tech-companies

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