Freedom Online Coalition Joint Statement on Responsible Government Practices for AI Technologies

• Authority: Other multinational
• Jurisdiction: Multinational
• Collections: Multinational
• Most recent activity: Enacted
• Most recent activity date: 2024-09-23

Risk subdomain coverage

Good coverage — Comprehensive governance measures or mitigations with clear procedures relating to the risk subdomain are explicitly described.

• Unfair discrimination and misrepresentation
• Unequal performance across groups
• Overreliance and unsafe use
• Loss of human agency and autonomy
• Lack of capability or robustness
• Lack of transparency or interpretability

Minimal coverage — Brief mention but no specific mitigations, recommendations or governance measures relating to the risk subdomain are described.

• Exposure to toxic content
• Compromise of privacy
• AI system security vulnerabilities
• False or misleading information
• Disinformation, surveillance, and influence at scale
• Fraud, scams, and targeted manipulation
• Increased inequality and decline in employment
• Environmental harm

All other risk subdomains had no coverage in this document.

Risk Coverage Summary

The document has good coverage of approximately 10-12 subdomains, with strong focus on discrimination and toxicity (1.1, 1.2, 1.3), privacy compromise (2.1), AI system security (2.2), misinformation (3.1), malicious actors (4.1, 4.3), human-computer interaction (5.1, 5.2), and system safety failures (7.3, 7.4). Coverage is concentrated in human rights impacts, fairness, and safety domains.

Sector coverage

Good coverage — Comprehensive governance measures or mitigations with clear procedures relating to the sector are explicitly described.

• Public Administration (excl. National Security)

Minimal coverage — Brief mention but no specific mitigations, recommendations or governance measures relating to the sector are described.

• Health Care & Social Assistance
• National Security

All other sectors had no coverage in this document.

Sectors Summary

The document primarily governs AI use across all public sector activities and government services, with explicit mention of healthcare, law enforcement and justice, and public benefits provision as high-risk sectors. The governance applies broadly to government operations across multiple sectors rather than being sector-specific.

Legislative Status

Soft Law

Legislative Status Summary

This is a non-binding joint statement by the Freedom Online Coalition member states that uses voluntary language ('call on governments to', 'pledge to') and lacks enforcement mechanisms or legal penalties. It represents voluntary commitments and recommendations rather than legally binding obligations.

Actors

Proposer

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor
• Entities: Freedom Online Coalition (FOC); Member states including: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Cabo Verde, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Ghana, Ireland, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Republic of Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Maldives, Mexico, Moldova, Mongolia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Tunisia, the United Kingdom, and the United States
• Summary: The document is a joint statement released by the Freedom Online Coalition, whose member states are explicitly listed. The FOC member countries collectively propose these responsible AI practices and principles.

Target

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor, AI_Developer, AI_Deployer
• Entities: Governments (all governments globally); Private sector entities/vendors that design, develop, deploy AI systems for governments; Business enterprises
• Summary: The document explicitly calls on governments to adopt these practices and also addresses private sector vendors through procurement requirements. The statement targets both government AI activities and private sector entities that provide AI systems to governments.

Enforcer

• Summary: No enforcement mechanisms, bodies, or authorities are specified in this voluntary joint statement. The document relies on voluntary adherence by governments rather than formal enforcement.

Monitor

• Summary: While the document calls for ongoing monitoring of AI systems by deploying governments themselves, no external monitoring body or oversight authority is designated to track compliance with these voluntary commitments.

AI Lifecycle Stages

Lifecycle stages covered by the documents, as defined in the OECD Framework for the Classification of AI Systems

• Plan and Design
• Collect and Process Data
• Build and Use Model
• Verify and Validate
• Deploy
• Operate and Monitor

AI Lifecycle Summary

The document comprehensively covers all AI lifecycle stages from planning through monitoring. It explicitly addresses design, data collection and processing, model building, verification and validation, deployment, and ongoing monitoring with detailed requirements for each stage.

Technical Scope

Terms relating to technical scope that are mentioned or implicitly referenced in the document

• AI Systems

Technical Scope Summary

The document uses the general term 'AI systems' throughout and does not explicitly define or distinguish between AI models, AI systems, frontier AI, general purpose AI, task-specific AI, foundation models, generative AI, predictive AI, open-weight models, or compute thresholds. The focus is on AI systems broadly defined by their impact on human rights and safety rather than technical characteristics.