Holistic AI, makers of the leading AI governance platform for the enterprise, today announced it has successfully completed the world's first independent audit of Wikipedia under the European Union's Digital Services Act (DSA). As one of the 23 Very Large Online Platforms (VLOPs) designated by the European Commission on the basis of having over 45 million monthly visitors in the EU, Wikipedia must meet the rigorous transparency, accountability, and enhanced safety standards outlined by the DSA.
The DSA represents a cornerstone of the EU's digital policy. Alongside the AI Act and Digital Markets Act, the DSA impacts global companies and is aimed at fostering a safer digital ecosystem. The first audit period of the legislation started on August 25, 2023. Wikipedia's full audit report is available here.
The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization that operates Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects. The information on Wikipedia is created and moderated by a global community of nearly 260,000 volunteer contributors who set and enforce policies to ensure that information on the platform is fact-based, neutral, and attributed to reliable sources. The Foundation is funded primarily by small individual donations from people who read Wikipedia.
"Over several years, we have developed deep expertise-both as researchers and builders of the Holistic AI Platform-in digital technologies and AI, in global regulations, and in identifying risks and exposures as companies navigate governance and compliance of their systems," said Emre Kazim, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Holistic AI. "One key insight we've gained is the importance of assessing online platforms within the context of their intended use. For example, a youth website might limit recommendations to prevent unauthorized purchases while an adult ecommerce site does the opposite. This contextual evaluation is a distinctive feature of the Holistic AI Governance platform, setting it apart from other compliance tools. Our work with the Wikimedia Foundation further reinforced this learning for our team, helping us deepen our understanding of the Digital Services Act as it applies to a very large online platform like Wikipedia with none of the typical digital revenue generators like ads, a marketplace, and ratings."
This audit with the Wikimedia Foundation exemplifies Holistic AI's commitment to fostering safe, transparent, and responsible digital spaces. By partnering with the Wikimedia Foundation to conduct the first-ever audit of Wikipedia under the DSA, Holistic AI is also helping VLOPs assess and mitigate the risks of online platforms and implement best practices that prioritize innovation, safety, and accountability.
"The Wikimedia Foundation is proud of our progress in meeting the DSA's standards, including completing this inaugural independent audit regarding our compliance on matters such as complaint handling, transparency reporting, and risk assessment and mitigation," said Jacob Rogers, Associate General Counsel at the Wikimedia Foundation. "We are grateful for the expertise of the Holistic AI team, who took time to understand Wikipedia's unique community-led content governance model, speak with Wikipedia volunteer contributors, and interpret the DSA in a way that made it possible for us to complete our audit ahead of schedule."
The Importance of Audits in Upholding Regulations
With significant expertise in this area, Holistic AI recognizes that audits are important in ensuring organizations are abiding by required guidelines and standards that help to mitigate potential harms related to online safety. According to the World Economic Forum, incidents involving cyberstalking, phishing, and fraud targeting particularly vulnerable populations-such as minors, the elderly, and individuals with disabilities-have surged by nearly 80%. While AI often draws attention, it is worth noting that other digital technologies, including those used for targeted marketing and content moderation, are also susceptible to exploitation. Holistic AI provides a free tool, the Holistic AI Tracker, to help organizations easily keep track of the governance, regulatory, and compliance activity worldwide. The Tracker provides an at-a-glance graphical world map view of AI activity in key geographies, a Feed with relevant news and research, in-depth articles on key developments, activity roundups, and analyses authored by Holistic AI's policy and legal experts, as well as members of the AI Expert Community.
About the Holistic AI Governance Platform
The research and independent audits performed by the Holistic AI policy and legal team help to inform the best practices that ultimately get built into Holistic AI products. The Holistic AI Governance Platform accelerates AI transformation within an enterprise by integrating AI governance seamlessly with all common data and AI systems across the organization. It automatically discovers AI projects in progress, simplifies inventory management, assesses technical and regulatory risks early in development, and offers actionable risk mitigation strategies. With automated reporting, continuous monitoring, and an executive-level dashboard, the platform gives leadership comprehensive oversight and control of their AI use cases, enabling teams to move from concept to deployment faster-ultimately maximizing ROI for the enterprise.
About Holistic AI
Founded in 2020, Holistic AI's mission is to empower enterprises to adopt and scale AI with confidence. Holistic AI's purpose-built AI governance platform helps companies accelerate AI transformation across the organization-transparently, responsibly, and with ROI accountability for the C-Suite. With Holistic AI, businesses can increase visibility and control of AI projects, eliminate communication bottlenecks across teams, and significantly reduce AI risk across the enterprise. Holistic AI is part of Microsoft's Founders' Hub, Pegasus Program, and Nvidia's Inception program. Its founders are active members, experts, and/or collaborators in the following organizations and initiatives: the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) AI Safety Institute, the OECD's Network of Experts on AI, the Alan Turing Institute, the Assessment and Mitigation working groups for the EU AI Act GPAI Code of Practice, and the Council of Europe. For more information, see www.holisticai.com.
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