Governance, Regulation, Legislation, Geostrategies

 

OECD publishes Policy Brief on user control and privacy in AI – The Organisation for Economic Co‑operation and Development (OECD) issued a policy brief in October 2026 on user control and privacy protections across the artificial intelligence (AI) lifecycle. The brief notes that building AI machine‑learning models often requires large volumes of high‑quality data, which may purposefully or inadvertently include personal data. The brief highlights a dual need to facilitate access to quality data while ensuring privacy and users’ control over their personal data, alongside safeguards for intellectual property rights and other legitimate interests. – https://dig.watch/updates/oecd-brief-on-user-control-and-privacy-in-ai

 

UNESCO stresses 7 actions against AI-enabled violence in education – UNESCO has published a technical brief urging education authorities to address online and technology-facilitated violence through coordinated policies that connect learner protection with education technology governance. The brief, ‘Connected and safe: Policy orientations to address online and technology-facilitated violence in education’, identifies risks associated with generative artificial intelligence (AI), including sexually explicit deepfakes, image-manipulation tools, voice cloning and automated harassment. Such tools can make existing forms of abuse easier to carry out and scale. – https://dig.watch/updates/unesco-7-actions-ai-enabled-violence-in-education

 

ILO highlights collective labour rights in workplace AI governance – The International Labour Organization (ILO) has published a working paper examining how international labour standards can guide the ethical use of artificial intelligence in workplaces. Released on 23 October, the study explores connections between established labour rights and five widely recognised AI ethics principles: justice, beneficence, non-maleficence, autonomy and explicability. – https://dig.watch/updates/ilo-labour-rights-workplace-ai

 

UN experts warn AI could reinforce disability discrimination – United Nations experts have warned that AI systems developed without the participation of persons with disabilities risk reinforcing discrimination, restricting opportunities, and undermining privacy and autonomy. Speaking before the UN General Assembly’s Third Committee, Miyeon Kim, Chair of the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, recognised AI’s potential to improve accessibility and independent living, while stressing the need to ensure that its development respects the rights of persons with disabilities. – https://dig.watch/updates/un-experts-warn-ai-could-reinforce-discrimination

 

UNCTAD launches tools to help developing countries attract AI investment – The United Nations Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has announced new tools and partnerships to help developing countries attract investment in AI infrastructure. Unveiled at the World Investment Forum in Doha, Qatar, the measures aim to address barriers that prevent developing economies from securing financing for digital infrastructure and benefiting from AI-related investment. – https://dig.watch/updates/unctad-tools-developing-countries-ai-investment

 

China releases progress report on AI capacity-building plan – China has released a progress report on the AI Capacity-Building Action Plan for Good and for All, reviewing two years of efforts to help countries, particularly developing countries and the Global South, build the infrastructure, skills, data and governance capacity needed to develop and use artificial intelligence. The Action Plan was launched in September 2024 and is built around five priorities and ten areas of cooperation. – https://dig.watch/updates/china-ai-capacity-building-progress

 

Masdar and Khazna plan clean energy for Greek data centres – UAE renewable energy company Masdar and Khazna Data Centers have signed a memorandum of understanding to explore clean energy and storage solutions for data centres in Greece. The partnership aims to support the country’s expanding digital infrastructure as AI, cloud computing and other digital services increase electricity demand. – https://dig.watch/updates/masdar-khazna-lenergy-greek-data-centres

 

Security, Surveillance

 

Italy ’s Parliament Under Cyber Pressure: Why the Attack on the Chamber Matters – The cyberattack targeting email accounts at Italy’s Chamber of Deputies, including a parliamentary account assigned to Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, raises questions that go well beyond the security of individual inboxes. At a time when European institutions face growing cyber pressure, the incident highlights how access to political communications can become part of a broader hybrid warfare strategy. The Chamber confirmed that its IT systems had been targeted and said it had activated security measures in cooperation with Italy’s National Cybersecurity Agency (ACN). According to reports, three parliamentary email accounts were affected, including those associated with Meloni, former Justice undersecretary Andrea Delmastro and lawmaker Paolo Formentini. Palazzo Chigi clarified that the account assigned to Meloni was not the one she uses for government communications. That distinction matters, but it does not settle the broader security questions raised by the incident. The public information available so far does not provide a complete technical account of what happened, what level of access the attackers may have obtained, or whether any information was taken. – https://securityaffairs.com/201867/hacking/italys-parliament-under-cyber-pressure-why-the-attack-on-the-chamber-matters.html

 

Australia’s Cyber Spy Chief: Expect More Disruption as AI Accelerates Hacking – Australia’s top cyber spy has a blunt message: expect more disruption to everyday services. Abigail Bradshaw, director-general of the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD), says that with each jump in AI capability, more disruption is likely. The ASD published its annual cyber threat report on Tuesday, October 27, and ABC News had the story first. Bradshaw says the most advanced AI models have redefined the threat. Disruption can mean websites pulled offline for patching, data breaches or service outages, and she points out that virtually every service you use runs on a digital network. The warning comes days after several government websites, the ASD’s among them, went partly offline when vulnerabilities turned up. Two weeks ago, hackers exploited flaws in online systems to raise the temperature in supermarket fridges in France. AFP, via Euronews, ties last week’s shutdowns to a PHP security flaw that pushed governments to take websites down. It says the flaw was found using a powerful OpenAI model. – https://securityaffairs.com/201859/ai/australias-cyber-spy-chief-expect-more-disruption-as-ai-accelerates-hacking.html

 

Attackers Take Control of Dahua Cameras and Video Recorders Via Easy4IP – Ukraine’s cyber incident response team CERT-UA has warned about attackers taking over video surveillance systems made by Dahua. In its alert dated October 23, 2026, it reports unauthorized remote access to IP cameras and video recorders. The attackers have watched the live video, changed device settings and created accounts of their own. The alert doesn’t say who was targeted or how many devices are affected. The attackers abused Easy4IP, Dahua’s cloud feature that lets users access devices remotely. When this feature is enabled, the camera or recorder connects to Dahua’s cloud and registers using its serial number. Anyone who knows the serial number may be able to access the device through the cloud, without needing an open port or a public IP address. This means the connection can bypass the protection normally provided by a router’s firewall. As a result, a camera that isn’t directly exposed to the internet may still be at risk. CERT-UA warns that devices with Easy4IP enabled may be vulnerable even when they cannot be accessed directly from the internet. – https://securityaffairs.com/201827/hacking/attackers-take-control-of-dahua-cameras-and-video-recorders-via-easy4ip.html

 

Cohere Finds Qwen AI Model Contacting a Server in China – A report from Cohere says an Alibaba AI model Qwen tried to contact a server in China while carrying out a cybersecurity task. “Asked to write a defensive detection rule, Qwen3.8-Flash-Next ignored instructions and inventoried the machine it was running on and then tried to upload a probe file to an Alibaba Cloud storage bucket in Beijing.” reads the report published by Cohere. “Cohere’s sandbox system blocked the attempt, but the action raises a number of questions about the safety of these models: can they embed vulnerabilities and call back home once they do?”. Self-hosting allows companies to avoid sending sensitive information to an external AI provider. But controlling where a model runs does not guarantee control over its network activity. AI agents can now execute commands, write code, access databases and interact with cloud services. Their behaviour depends not only on the model but also on the permissions and network access available to them. – https://securityaffairs.com/201810/ai/cohere-finds-qwen-ai-model-contacting-a-server-in-china.html

 

Tech Giants launch flaws response AI‑based initiatives – Aimed at mitigating AI‑accelerated and facilitated cyber risk and fostering emerging governance practices in digital security, Anthropic’s Project Glasswing, OpenAI’s Patch the Planet, Google’s Wiz unit, Amazon Continuum are among the major tech industry initiatives, tools or platform that have been launched over the last 6 six months. As a direct sub-initiative of the Patch the Planet umbrella, OpenAI’s Daybreak for Frontline Defenders puts powerful AI cyber capabilities into the hands of under-resourced public services, defensive operators, and critical infrastructure maintainers. Besides, Microsoft’s Secure Future Initiative, is a multiyear engineering and cultural commitment launched in November 2023 to embed cybersecurity across product design, development, and operations. – https://dig.watch/updates/tech-giants-aibased-flaws-response-initiatives

 

Frontiers and Markets

 

Anthropic’s S-1 reveals frontier AI security risks, over IPO – Anthropic’s announced on 26 October 2026 that it had filed for an initial public offering (IPO), a process through which a company offers its shares to public investors for the first time, potentially raising capital while taking on greater disclosure obligations. Anthropic’s listing comes at a critical time since the company’s net loss in the first half of 2026 widened sharply to $80.7 billion, according to Reuters. – https://dig.watch/updates/anthropic-s-1-reveals-frontier-ai-security-risks