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The Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy has submitted cross-Cambridge evidence to the United Nations for the Global Digital Compact.

Read our evidence

Following the political declaration adopted at the occasion of the United Nations’ 75th anniversary, the Secretary-General of the United Nations Antonio Guterres in September 2021 released his report Our Common Agenda.

Among its broad proposals for the future of multilateralism, and building on the Secretary-General’s Roadmap for Digital Cooperation, the Common Agenda proposes a Global Digital Compact to be agreed at the Summit of the Future which will be held in September 2023.

The Secretary-General has proposed that the Compact would be the main outcome of a multistakeholder technology track (involving all stakeholders: governments, the United Nations system, the private sector, civil society, and individuals, including youth) at the 2023 Summit.

The UN is currently inviting input to the Global Digital Compact – welcoming contributions of ideas, opinions and inputs on what we think the digital future should look like.

We see enormous strength in providing an interdisciplinary response to the call for evidence to the Global Digital Compact.

This call comes at a critical time, as governments around the world bring forward fragmented legislative agendas toward digital policy.

Our evidence covers the digital issues mentioned in the United Nations Common Agenda identifying issues that should be addressed in the Global Digital Compact.

The digital issues covered are:

1.Connect all people to the internet, including all schools

2.Avoid internet fragmentation

3.Protect data

4.Apply human rights online

5.Introduce accountability criteria for discrimination and misleading content

6.Promote regulation of artificial intelligence

7.Digital commons as a global public good

About our submission

We opened dialogue on this topic through group and individual consultations with colleagues across the University of Cambridge, exploring the seven issues by development ‘core principles’ and ‘key commitments’ to address each, for example:

1. Core principles that all governments, companies, civil society organisations, and other stakeholders should adhere to;

2. Key commitments to bring about these specific principles. These can take the form of what you think “should” be done

Our dialogues identified an eighth digital issue: Environmental Consequences, that needed addressing through the Global Digital Compact.

For reference, the full guidance note to submitting evidence for the Global Digital Compact is available here.

Dialogue participants

For this consultation, we held dialogue and interview sessions with researchers working across the University of Cambridge, bringing together diverse perspectives for an interdisciplinary submission, including:

Gina Neff, Executive Director, Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy

Jess Gardener, Director of Library Services

Ella McPherson, Co-Director, Centre for Governance and Human Rights

May Hen Smith, Leverhulme Trust Research Fellow, Jesus College

David Erdos, Co-Director, Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law

Sebastian Kurten, MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit

Tugba Basaran, Director, Centre for the Study of Global Human Movement

Genevieve Macfarlane-Smith, Affiliate, Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy

Corinne Cath, Affiliate, Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy

Mallika Balakrishnan, Affiliate, Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy

Margie Cheesman, Affiliate, Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy

Alexa Hagerty, Affiliate, Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy

Ann Kristin Glenster, Senior Advisory Law and Policy, Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy

Jeremy Hughes, External Affairs Manager, Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy

Hunter Vaughan, Senior Research Associate, Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy

Sebastian Lehuede, Centre for Governance and Human Rights, University of Cambridge

Hugo Leal, Research Associate, Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy