Cybersecurity for Elections

Abstract

CERT computer emergency response team CNI critical national infrastructure CRA communications (including broadcasting) regulatory authority/agency CSIRT computer security incident response team DDoS distributed denial of service -a type of online attack where a site and its ISP are flooded with traffic from other devices across the internet, slowing down or stopping the site from responding to legitimate users DPA data protection authority (or commission), referred to in some countries as an information or privacy commissioner, responsible for enforcing data protection and privacy laws DRE direct recording electronic (machine) -a type of voting machine that records a voter's choice in a polling station

Responding to Disinformation: Ten Recommendations for Regulatory Action and Forbearance

“…This chapter elaborates on challenges and emerging best practices for state regulation of electoral disinformation throughout the electoral cycle. It is based on research for three studies during 2018-20: into election cybersecurity for the Commonwealth (Brown et al 2020); on the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to regulate disinformation for the European Parliament (Marsden & Meyer 2019a;Meyer et al 2020); and for UNESCO, the United Nations body responsible for education (Kalina et al 2020). The research covers more than half the world's nations, and substantially more than half that population, and in 2019 the two largest democratic elections in history: India's general election and the European Parliamentary elections.…”

“…Implementing best practices against electoral disinformation will require action by EMBs, data protection agencies, communications and media regulators, parliamentary authorities, and ministries of justice and equivalent (Brown et al 2020). However, neither effective implementation, nor a disinterested assessment of best practice, can be guaranteed.…”