Cross-border data flows

Now, I'm going to talk about a very important subject called cross-border data flows. I am from Johannesburg, and in 2023, I assume as a rector of the United Nations University, which is based in Japan. When I arrived in Japan, I encountered something that I had taken for granted, which is the the fact that data does not flow between countries unregulated. One example is that I cannot be able to watch television in South Africa while I am here, because that data is not supposed to flow. But this is just entertainment. Another thing that I realized is that when I am in South Africa, I can go to a website called Lancet, and all my medical blood results are inside that website. So my doctor in South Africa can be able to see that data set. Now, when I come to Japan, because data is not flowing as it is supposed to across countries, I realize that I cannot be able to access the same data set. Of course, I could if I use a VPN. But a VPN in this regard is not an ethical tool to use because you are effectively moving data, which is not supposed to be moved, in this case medical data, from one country to another. So we need to have some form of regulations to ensure that data flows from one country to another. In 2019, at the G7, the then Prime Minister of Japan, Abe, introduced to the G7 the cross-border data flow with trust initiative. And of course, trust is a very important issue. is to say, yes, the medical data must flow between countries. But we must trust that it does not violate human rights. In other words, the data was collected from a person with informed consent, for example. Number two, in that flow of that data, You don't have cyber weapons that are buried in that data set. So the issue of cross-border data flow is very important. It is even more important when you are dealing with issues of climate change, because we need to know what is happening in other parts of the world. I come from Africa. And in Africa, you have a river called the Nile River. It flows between 11 different countries, starting somewhere in Uganda, all the way to the Mediterranean Sea through Egypt. It is clear that if we are to regulate from environmental sustainability perspective, that river, the data about what is happening to that river in one country must also be accessible in another country. This is what we call data flow, free data flow across borders. And of course, when we are building AI systems, we require data. And some of that data is not domiciled in a single country. If we can have cross-border data flow with trust, then we can be able to train important models in regulated areas such as medicine and ensure that the health of people is taken care of. Of course, we just come from a very important phenomena, the COVID-19. We will all agree that if data was flowing well between countries, we could have tackled that problem well. We'll be able to know on time, we'll be able to know the accurate data and plan accordingly, then prevent unnecessary death.