On 8 October 2020, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean (PAM) participated in a webinar on “Emerging and Disruptive Technologies in Africa and the Middle East”, Co-organized by the Allied Command Transformation (ACT) and NATO Strategic Direction South Hub (NSD-S HUB).
The event brought together different regional experts from a variety of disciplines and with diverse backgrounds to provide their insights on “Emergent Technologies in the Middle East and Africa”. The purpose of the event was to improve NATO’s strategic understanding and further strengthen NATO’s working relationships with non-NATO entities.
The discussion addressed issues such as use of “deepfakes” and misinformation to incite disorder and armed conflict amongst rival groups, cybercrime trends in Africa, the vulnerability of states to cyberattacks, national cybersecurity strategies, and the overall impact of new technologies on human and digital security in Africa and the Middle East.
PAM was represented by Hon. Ammar Moussi (Algeria) and Hon. Dr. Marianne Amir Azer (Egypt), bringing a legislative perspective to the discussion. In her intervention, Hon. Azer highlighted the need to share legislative practices on cyber policies among countries in Africa and MENA region, as legal frameworks are the essential base for national cybersecurity strategies.
PAM participation in this meeting comes in the context of the established PAM-NATO cooperation, and a growing concern on the role of technology being used by malicious actors in the PAM regions. PAM has also worked together with the Council of Europe to see how the Budapest Convention on cybercrime, which is open to all counties, can become a wider tool to harmonize legislation and increase interoperability of legal systems on electronic evidence.
In the last Plenary Session of PAM, the Assembly adopted a resolution that encourages all of its member states, including in the MENA and Gulf regions, to utilize this convention for legislative harmonization as it provides procedural tools on mutual legal assistance, extradition, expedited preservation, production orders, search and seizure, and interception of computer data, among others, as well as dedicated 24/7 points of contact, who cooperate in real time.