UNODC Further discusses solutions in relation to technology

The debate opened up with the delegate of Singapore talking about the mediums of education and raising awareness. The delegate discussed Less-Developed Countries (LDCs) and More-Developed Countries (MDCs) to raise awareness. Australia urged for a new branch of UNODC, and Japan went further to talk about the Official Development Assistance (ODA), a non-government organisation.

Germany went on to state that it would be better to remove the root of the problem rather than solve it after it occurs. This idea was further supported by the delegates of Korea and Switzerland. Switzerland reiterated the idea of helping the elderly and children with the help of members from the UN. The delegate of Singapore, claimed that Singapore would provide aid by sending people from Singapore to LDCs to assist them in education. Thailand went on to say that education was the best way to completely remove identity related thefts.

The debate moved on to talk about people storing their data in a database so that no one can hack the data. This idea was first brought forth by the delegate of China. The idea immediately divided the council. A range of delegates felt that the reason this solution was unfeasible was because of trust issues and corruption. Countries like Thailand believed that the corrupt government officials could exploit the information of individuals for money. Trust was another issue. It was unlikely that one country would trust another country with its citizens’ personal information. Therefore Australia suggested that this could be combated by the country making its own database so that only the government in the country can access this data.

Amid the debate a rather amusing exchange took place during an unmoderated caucus relating to the country database with Australia accusing Thailand’s government of corruption. This heavily infuriated the Thai delegate. In an interview, when asked how he felt about the accusation of the Thai government, commented,“It was horrible. How could a delegate say such a thing? I have to say that it was not a good look for Australia.” When asked if he wanted to attack the Australian side, he claimed that his country had other things to deal with. The humble Thai delegate added on, “Attacking him would just bring more problems to us. There isn’t a need to fight with another country. My country has other problems including identity theft to deal with and adding a fight with Australia would not be in our best interests.” From there then both delegates seemed to get along, with the Thailand delegate seemingly interested in Australia’s point on a country database.

However, delegates still argued that corruption could result in this information being revealed. The delegate of Pakistan raised a point of using laws to prevent people from revealing the data, which was further encouraged by the delegates of China and Fiji. However, the delegate of Germany questioned the feasibility of the measures. To this Fiji claimed, “through these measures, it is brought to light that we should protect ourselves.” This changed Germany’s stance and they went on to support Australia’s point. Thailand spotlighted the point that the only way the database is secure is by having all the countries’ support.

By the end of the session, it was agreed that a database would be created for the secure storage and legal distribution of the private information of a country’s citizens. Delegates are planning to move on to tackle the solution of education in the coming session. In addition, delegates are also discussing the idea of stricter laws as a deterrent. Though the idea of laws has passed, they continue to discuss the idea of what laws should be in place. This leaves education, laws and document verification systems to be discussed in the next session.

AFP recognises that France is one of the countries with the biggest incidence of identity theft, hence emphasising how identity theft is a pressing issue. Some impacts of identity theft are emotional trauma, financial tolls, physical tolls and social tolls. Emotionally, the victims could feel various emotions like anger, fear and shock. While on a physical scale, victims can experience symptoms such as inability to focus, body pain, sweating and heart and stomach issues. On a social scale, hackers can damage one's reputation by using one's accounts to post pretending to be that person. Finally, the last point on the financial toll, which more straightforwardly put, hackers can easily take over one's investment and financial accounts.