This Global Trends flash discusses an amendment to Australia’s criminal code that strengthens criminal penalties for the transmission of unconsented sexually explicit material, including material made via artificial intelligence (AI) or other technology. This conduct is often meant to humiliate and harass others, especially women and girls; and it has become increasingly common worldwide. This is due to easily accessible deep synthesis or “deepfake” software, namely AI-powered tools that can reproduce the likenesses of real persons. Several jurisdictions around the world are addressing the deepfake phenomenon generally.

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) announced that the final date for subscriber identification module (SIM) card registration is 14 September 2024. After that date, all SIM cards which are not linked to a national identity number (NIN) will be deactivated. To date, more than 153m SIM cards have been successfully registered with NIN identification, achieving a 96% compliance rate, this Global Trends Flash highlights. Like Nigeria, several other African countries have recently updated their regulatory frameworks to ensure SIM card users’ identities are duly registered.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) is consulting until 19 September 2024 on a draft policy brief aimed at informing legislators worldwide about regulatory approaches to artificial intelligence (AI) currently being considered globally by legislative bodies. UNESCO identified and categorized nine regulatory approaches. These are not mutually exclusive and were ordered by UNESCO from the least interventionist to the most coercive. This Global Trends Flash summarises the findings and scope of the UNESCO policy brief, with concrete examples from around the world for each of the nine categories identified.

This Global Trends benchmark covers 5G policies, regulations and commercial reality across 18 jurisdictions around the world. The coverage has been extended to include Nigeria and the UK from this edition.

Under a new regulatory framework, effective from 2025, all internet messaging and social media service providers with at least 8m users in Malaysia must apply for an Applications Service Provider class licence, issued by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission. The regulation aims to counter harmful behaviour on online platforms, from cyberbullying to the circulation of online scams, and ensure collaboration from large platforms on the removal of user-generated illegal content. This Global Trends Flash summarises the rationale and scope of this new regulation, which parallels similar regulations and proposals from around the world.

This Global Trends flash discusses a US government report that urges that the US support artificial intelligence (AI) innovation by promoting the spread of AI capabilities already available to the public that, while beneficial, are also potentially harmful. The document recommends, for the time being, a wait-and-see approach of monitoring and studying the risks further, rather than the immediate application of a risk-management regime and the restrictions it would entail. Worldwide, many AI regulatory frameworks are equally focused on risks, but their approaches differ from the report’s recommendation.