Keeping people safe online is a big concern for the organizers of the 2024 Paris Olympics. Research shows that over 450 million cyberattacks were attempted at the Japan Olympics in 2020, which is 2.5 times more than the number of attacks at the 2012 London Summer Olympics.
Cyber attacks in the sports industry can leak athlete data, manipulate results, and make people lose trust in brands, countries, organizations and more. As Artificial Intelligence continues to impact every sector including sports, sports groups have begun to leverage it to tackle security issues. With just a short time until this global event begins, France partners with a top AI-driven risk intelligence company to enhance online safety measures for the Olympics.
At the Olympic AI Agenda launch in April 2024, Kirsty Burrows, Head of Safe Sport Unit at the International Olympic Committee (IOC), spoke about the challenges athlete’s and officials face from cyber bullying and misinformation. She stated, “We are working with a provider to provide an unprecedented coverage using AI to foster a digitally safe environment”.
Olympic AI Agenda | IOC Media
The provider at the Paris 2024 Olympics is called Blackbird.AI. Blackbird.AI is a company that defends organizations from narrative attacks created by misinformation and disinformation. Blackbird.AI built Constellation, which is an AI platform that understands narratives. Constellation automatically detects, analyses and measures risk, gains context around the impact of harmful narratives and provides clarity that will aid in critical decision-making.
Kirtsy Burrows explains that Blackbird.AI’s Constellation will be used to capture millions of data points to detect targeted online abuse towards athletes and officials at a large scale and in real-time. This AI will scan millions of data points using natural language understanding to identify those threats and action can be taken.
One way the Olympics committee intends to take action is by working with service providers to have the content removed. Another way is to integrate it to their safe guarding systems that are in place to provide in-person support.
Paris 2024 will be the first time that AI is used to provide safe online spaces for such a large number of athletes competing in so many sports at the same time. The benefits of AI at the Olympics are huge, as discussed at the Olympics AI Agenda launch. There are many other ways AI can be integrated to ensure a safe sport environment and the committee should discuss further security steps.
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