Thematic Workshop: ICTs for Safety, Security and Disaster Recovery

On the occasion of the recent editions of the WSIS Forum MEDICI organised different workshops to showcase on the one side the richness of applications and services provided by ICTs in the field of safety, security and disaster recovery and management and to contribute to provide a reference point for all those working in these sectors and those who may take advantage from their outcomes. This year we continued this path selecting additional international case study both to approach new sectors and enrich the platform of skills and competences involved. Safety and security are integral part of human rights; we must provide all the efforts in order to guarantee such rights (as stated in art 3, 22, 25 - The Universal Declaration of Human Rights). In addition, a number of SDGs are tightly connected or rely on safety and security: SDG 2, SDG3, SDG6, SGD6, SDG7, SDG8, SDG9, SDG11, SDG16, SDG17. Some of the specific fields are: food & water security, human security, safety, critical infrastructure resilience, drugs security and more. Nowadays the demand for "safety & security" in all its forms has increased, especially quantitatively and qualitatively, making clear the need for new approaches to enable the entire sector to ensure better results. Looking from a different perspective: we outline the role of ICTs in risks assessment and management. They are playing key roles in a number of “risky” scenarios from health and children abuse to homeland security and law enforcement, crimes, trafficking (humans, drugs, weapons, artefacts, etc.) and even safety on working places and mobility. Of course, technology it is not enough to solve problems, it is well known and demonstrated that a holistic, interdisciplinary approach and a culture of "safety & security" taking adequately into account human factors are the basis in order to obtain good results in this area. We must promote an interdisciplinary approach and a “culture” of safety & security, they are the basis in order to obtain good results in this area; foster the exchange of experiences and best practices among countries and promote research thanks to the WSIS. On the occasion of previous editions of the WSIS Forum (e.g. 2014, 2015, 2016) some eminent speakers underlined the key-role played by ICTs on the occasion of natural disasters and other critical events, they said that cyber technologies have fuelled the hope of people affected by the natural disaster. The availability of low price high performance devices and the proactive activity of clever developers have boosted the production of a number of smart solutions spread in different countries all-over the world. Due to the actual “silos” segmenting these sectors it is quite difficult to have a comprehensive vision on these resources and success stories, there is a need for a holistic approach and best practice sharing. Internet of things, machine learning, grids, network of sensors, remote sensing as well as near field communication and, why not, unmanned vehicles glued by networking are some of the building blocks of safety and security in different fields. The nine case study presented by the distinguished speakers on the occasion of the ICT for Safety and Security led to the following outcomes: there is a need to improve the visibility of ICT applications devoted to safety and security raising the same level of awareness actually limited to cyber security. The case study presented on the occasion of the workshop this year and the one already presented in the last editions of the WSIS have strengthened this need. Achievements in these fields positively impact the human rights and must be shared among researchers and countries. The WSIS Forum is the key forum for discussing the role of ICTs as a means of implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals, if we consider ICTs as powerful means to implement SDGs we must include and adequately take into account ICTs applied to safety and security in a broad sense, they are relevant part of SDGs as outlined many times both within the UNGA Overall WSIS Review and the UNDP 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development SDGs. An additional relevant issue emerged on the occasion of the workshop, as sometimes happens after revolutions, revolutionaries wonder if what they achieved is actually what they were hoping for. The original idea of computer scientists in the “hippies” counterculture era was aimed to empower citizens and provide them much freedom. Almost fifty years later, after the chimera of the “happy cyber-world”, some of us have started thinking that the foreseen Orwellian “1984” has simply come true ten, fifteen years later: globalisation, always on devices, position tracking systems, CRMs and users’ profiles, CCTVs and IoT; are those technologies framing citizens? Thoughts for some time have circled around how the speed of the new information revolution renders us less capable develop a critical approach able to foresee the social, ethic, economic impact of such revolution in a long-term perspective. So, in recent times we started facing a wave of criticism about the evolutionary path of the information and knowledge society, for quite a long time ICT gurus and humanists didn’t interact too much, the true power of cyber technology was largely unexpressed, there were some alerts as Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality, Robots often seen from humanists as potential danger for the mankind, but nothing concrete happened. The turning point was probably the exploitation of the Internet and the dissemination of information. Information is built on top of single or aggregation of data, for quite a long-time people use to think that cyberspace is a “black hole” without memory where you pour data without any side effect. Young generations shared on line sensitive information in order to access a videogame or chat with friends and more recently posted images and clips about their private life; does this mean “goodbye privacy?” As a consequence of a lack of “culture” in the use of emerging technologies now we have to deal with serious problems related to information ownership, use, abuse and misuse, not mentioning cybercrimes. An additional drawback is due to the deep technological intrusion affecting our daily life, we feel framed by cyber devices more than supported. Some evident outcomes of this feeling are the “right to disconnect” - controversial reform of French labour law by the labour minister Myriam El Khomri back in May 2016 and the “right to obsolescence” or the “right to be forgotten” due to Viktor Mayer-Schonberger, the author of “Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age”. All these to do not mention the cultural, social and economic impacts not always positive especially in a long-term perspective. Technologies originally conceived by idealists to provide much more freedom and wellness to humans took then a wrong path framing humans due to all the constraints placed upon us with new technologies. For instance, as liberating as they are - by providing flexibility and instant connectivity - we have become enslaved to our devices, fearful of losing out information and access in an increasingly competitive and fast-paced world. Consequently, our bodies have suffered, as have our minds (due to information overload), what of our work-life balance -- and this is just to begin with! Ranjit Makkuni’s paper “Betrayed IT Revolution” and presentation outlines a vision for new design of devices, clutter-free access to web documents to create deeper learning experiences. At the implication level, the project rethinks implications for new design of web mark-up languages that support the creating of ‘privacy’ based secure browsing. In conclusion we would like to stress the positive effects due to the WSIS process and its outcomes, panellists suggest to establish in the WSIS framework a global observatory on ICTs for safety, security and disaster recovery and to include and promote a wider range of “security” topics under the WSIS umbrella endorsing a holistic approach to the “Safety, Security, Disaster Recovery and Management” sector.