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Technology and Security: Enhancing Knowledge about Advances in Science and Technology to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction

Geneva (Palais des Nations), 17 October 2019.  

On 16-17 October 2019, the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI), organized an expert workshop at the Palais des Nations in Geneva, Switzerland in partnership with the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Centre (UNCCT) of the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism (UNOCT) and in cooperation with the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Coordination Compact - Working Group on Emerging Threats and Critical Infrastructure Protection.

The workshop gathered experts from Governments, academia and several international organizations who discussed how new technologies could be misused to perpetrate terrorist attacks involving weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

The workshop explored possible risk scenarios that could be caused by the misuse of unmanned aerial vehicles (drones), additive manufacturing and synthetic biology including gene-editing technologies as well as cyber-attacks powered by artificial intelligence.

The participants also considered specific aspects related to the occurrence of these risk scenarios including technological feasibility over time, required capabilities (i.e. skills, knowledge, resources, equipment, etc.) as well as the practicability from a perpetrator's point of view. The UNCCT funded this event, which was part of a series of UNICRI workshops organized by the UNICRI Knowledge Center Security Improvements, through Research, Technology and Innovation (SIRIO) in Geneva.

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