The Ministry of
Science and ICT (MSIT) in South Korea announced on May 2 at the State Council
that it will actively pursue the establishment of a "New Digital
Order" in alignment with President Yoon Suk-yeol's New York Initiative
(September 2022), his special address at Davos (January 2023), and his recent
speech at Harvard University during his visit to the United States (April
2023). The plan for the new digital order aims to create a basic direction for
a digital bill of rights and to stimulate social discussion, as well as to
actively lead global discussions on digital norms.
As the era of
digital sophistication advances, new and diverse issues have arisen that have
never existed before. For example, the emergence of generative artificial
intelligence (AI), such as ChatGPT, has sparked debates on copyright and
intellectual property rights for the creative works produced by AI, while
autonomous vehicles raise questions about who is responsible for accidents and
compensation. Such digital sophistication issues are complex and diverse in
their interrelationships. To embrace the changes of the digital age and fully
enjoy the benefits of digitalization, it is crucial to increase social acceptability,
and a new normative system (order) is needed for this purpose.
Korea has been at
the forefront of the digital age ahead of any other country in the world by
systematically responding to the Information Revolution (early 1990s)
transforming societies around the world. With another structural transformation
in the digital sophistication, comparable to the Industrial Revolution (late
18th century) and the Information Revolution, the Korean government plans to
establish a "New Digital Order" to resolve various digital issues and
promote continuous digital innovation.
Until coming
September, the Korean government will establish the digital bill of rights to
define the vision, goals, universal values and rights of humanity, and
obligations of citizens, companies, and the government, as well as principles
for resolving digital issues. Each ministry will create policies based on the
direction of the digital bill of rights. Furthermore, a civil-private
consultation body consisting of academia, industry, and consumer organizations
will be established to actively promote social discussion. An "online
public forum" will also be created by this August to enable citizens to
freely discuss the digital order. In addition, the government will conduct
annual surveys on the status of digital sophistication and use them as basic
policy-decision-making data. Lastly, the government of South Korea plans to
strengthen its role as a digital rule setter, leading global discussions on
digital norms, as a digital model country. The Ministry of Science and ICT
plans to actively propose its position and policies when there are digital norm
discussions in international organizations such as the G20, UN, and OECD. They
also plan to establish a "Digital Future Forum" in the OECD and
continue to lead discussions.
Minister of
Science and ICT, Jong-ho Lee, said, "It is significant that South Korea can
play a leading role in suggesting the direction we should aim for in the global
digital norm discussion, which is actively taking place worldwide following the
New York Initiative in September last year and the recent Harvard speech during
the recent U.S. visit." He added, "Now that we have established a
comprehensive government-led plan, we will work closely with relevant ministries
to establish a new digital order as a digital model country."
For
further information, please contact the Public Relations Division (Phone:
+82-44-202-4033, E-mail: yunay@korea.kr) of
the Ministry of Science and ICT.
Please refer to the attached PDF.