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NAIS took part in the European Consumer Summit 2024 , "Shaping the future together"
The Executive Director of NAIS, Ms. Svilena Nasalevska, participated in the annual European Consumer Summit held on April 18, 2024, in Brussels. The summit, themed 'Shaping the Future Together,' addressed numerous pressing issues impacting European consumers. Discussions centered around current and emerging challenges facing consumers, as well as the exploration of new solutions aimed at safeguarding their rights.
In addition to panel discussions, several workshops were organized in which participants split up to talk on the topics:
- Socio-economic dimension and inclusion
- Sustainable consumption
- Digital and advanced technologies
- International dimension of consumer policies
- Building better compliance and enforcement
- A fair Single Market that works for consumers and traders
Mrs. Nasalevska took part in the workshop on "Digital and advanced technologies", which was preferred by most of the participants. The sub-topics discussed in it were:
- Digital fairness in retail
- Social media as a sales channel
- Ethical standards in marketing
- Prevent fraud online
- The use of artificial intelligence to manipulate users: deepfakes and emulation of human features
- Ethics and privacy issues related to advanced technology
- Mental health risks of new technologies
- The Internet of Personalized Things
- Dark patterns
- AI and product safety
- Protection of children as users
Here is what she had to say about the workshop discussions:
"Unlike previous years, when the topic of digitalization did not attract so many participants, now there is definitely a huge attention to it. We split into several groups where different aspects of digitization were discussed. Every single one of them was interesting and intriguing, I had a hard time choosing which group to join because I wanted to hear more about them all. Very interesting discussions resulted, and quite good and practically applicable suggestions were given. In each conversation, both positive and negative aspects of each of the sub-themes were touched upon.
Also, it struck me that several times during the conference it was mentioned that overregulation and too many restrictions should not be overdone in an effort to protect the rights of consumers, so as not to stifle the attempts of businesses to offer more and more advanced, efficient, and effective solutions. I think this is a very wise approach in building consumer policies and in practice it works, it's not just a populist statement."
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