Trust in the European digital space in the age of automated bots and fakes - New Booklet

Brussels, 10^th of February 2022

The EU-funded, StandICT.eu 2023  Project, ICT Standardisation Observatory and Support Facility in Europe,  has just published the second of a series of Landscape Reports on ICT standards, "Trust in the European Digital Space in the age of automated bots and fakes"a palpable, overarching document that provides an overview of the diverse array of global standardisation work underway in Trusted Information and the various organisations behind it. This information will be continuously updated and evolve via the “EUOS – Observatory for ICT Standardisation” a database powered by StandICT.eu 2023 to cover the wide-range of topics identified in the Rolling Plan for ICT Standardisation and will ultimately result in the release of a dedicated Gaps Analysis Report for each theme.

This publication is the fruit of the dedicated EUOS Technical Working Group (TWG Trusted Information) set-up to harness expert advice and stimulate discussion among SDOs, public bodies, academic institutions and acclaimed specialists to provide an expert overview of documents and relevant activities for the standardisation in this field. This report provides an overview of the recent and imminent technological capabilities as well as their impact on democracy, business and legal systems. It explores sustainable countermeasures, with a main conclusion being that the detection tools for fabricated persons and content are not sufficient and need to be supplemented by standards for handling the identity and trustworthiness of sources of information without sacrificing privacy. The report concludes with concrete recommendations to European standardisers, policy makers and other stakeholders.

Disinformation has already been an urgent topic in Europe in recent years – be it as a threat to democratic discourse or as a threat to well-functioning markets. But the challenge is escalating: With AI tools such as Deepfakes and GPTx it is becoming possible to automate disinformation on a disruptive scale, and to thoroughly undermine trust in the digital space. It has been a great pleasure to work with a high-profile group under StandICT.eu/EUOS to analyse this new challenge and recommend ways to respond to it. Today we proudly present our report.

Sebastian Hallensleben, Head of Digitalisation and AI at VDE & Chair of EUOS TWG Trusted Information

We look forward to stimulating further thought leadership around standardisation efforts for Trusted Information outlined in the report and to favouring a structured dialogue between the EC, Member States and Standardisation organisations with the ultimate objective of robustly reinforcing current detection tools with complementary standards for handling the identity and trustworthiness of sources of information without sacrificing privacy.

Prabhat Agarwal, Acting Head of Unit F2 Digital Services & Platforms - DG Connect of the European Commission

When we are dealing with underregulated AI initiatives, they clearly have a significant impact and unintended consequences when technology collides with society. This report comes at a crucial time when control, transparency and clarity are integral in maintaining consumer confidence in this digital and data driven world.

Silvana Muscella, CEO at Trust-It and StandICT.eu 2023 Project Coordinator, Series Editor

Artificial Intelligence (AI) now facilitates the creation of fake news, videos and images on a massive scale using AI tools and frameworks. Verificable and trusted information is now a highly sought after commodity. This report is timely in presenting the current landscape of trustworthy information challenges and recommendations

Ray Walshe, StandICT.eu 2023 EAG Chair & EUOS Director,EUOS TWGs Coordinator, Series Editor

The Report includes a thorough and dedicated section that provides an overview of current standardisation activities as well as existing standards that have relevance in the field and poses some critical questions related to aspects of the concept itself, implementation issues and standardisation to be tackled.

Since its start, StandICT.eu 2023 has launched in EUOS 10 other such Technical Working Groups, 4 of them have been kicked-off after the publication of the first Landscape Report, in Blockchain (TWG BLOCK), Big Data Spaces and Data Interoperability (TWG BDDI), Cybersecurity (TWG Cyber), Smart Cities (TWG Smart Cities), Artificial Intelligence (TWG AI), Trusted Information (TWG TRUSTI), Digital Twin (TWG Digital Twin), Iot and Edge (TWG IoT & EDGE), Ontology (TWG Ontology), Big Data For Smart Cities (TWG Big Data For Smart Cities) and Standards Education (TWG ACADEMY) where further Landscape and Gap Analysis Reports will be published as part of the series. 

In parallel, StandICT.eu 2023 is providing 3M EURO to fund European ICT experts through a series of (9) Open Calls to participate in international Standardisation Developing Organisations' working groups across the wide-range of topics identified in the EC Rolling Plan for ICT Standardisation.^.