COMMUNICATION: IPRA Unveils AI, PR Guidelines for Ethical Practices

COMMUNICATION: IPRA Unveils AI, PR Guidelines for Ethical Practices

The International Public Relations Association (IPRA), a global organization dedicated to advancing ethical public relations practices, has unveiled a comprehensive set of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and PR Guidelines.

The guidelines, developed by a panel of IPRA experts, provide a framework for PR professionals to navigate the rapidly evolving landscape of AI and ensure that their use of AI aligns with IPRA’s principles of ethics, transparency, and accountability.

The guidelines starting point is to recall that AI content has the potential both to enhance public relations, and the potential for bias, misuse, deception, and harm

The guidelines take 5 of the 18 articles of the IPRA ethical code of conduct and interpret implementation with respect to AI and PR. For example, under code article four to be open and transparent the guidelines urge PR practitioners to disclose when they are using AI.

Equally, under article seven of the IPRA code to ensure truth and accuracy, the guidelines ask that AI content is fact-checked by humans. The set of 11 guidelines can be found the website of IPRA.

The 2023 Guidelines complement IPRA’s history of codes of conduct. Throughout its existence IPRA has sought to provide intellectual leadership for the public relations profession.

A key part of this is the development of codes and guidelines seeking to provide an ethical framework for the activities of the profession. Upon joining IPRA, members undertake to uphold these codes and in doing so benefit from the ethical climate that they create.

The current code, reviewed in 2020, consolidates the 1961 Code of Venice, the 1965 Code of Athens and the 2007 Code of Brussels. The IPRA Climate Change Guidelines were launched at the start of 2023.

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The IPRA AI and PR Guidelines

RECALLING that public relations practitioners through their communication skills possess a unique means of influence;

RECALLING that digital channels of communication are channels where erroneous or misleading information may be widely disseminated and remain unchallenged, and therefore demand special attention from public relations practitioners to maintain trust and credibility;

RECALLING that AI content has the potential both to enhance public relations, and the potential for bias, misuse, deception, and harm;

In the use of AI content in communications public relations practitioners will implement:

1. article two of the IPRA code to act with honesty and integrity by determining in advance when AI content will be used for an external communication and if so, ensure these guidelines are followed.

2. article four of the IPRA code to be open and transparent by ensuring that AI content is disclosed as such ensuing that regulatory guidelines relating to AI disclosure are followed implementing style guidelines for the identification of such disclosures.

3. article six of the IPRA code to honour confidential information by establishing staff training on what constitutes confidential or copyrighted information
avoiding entering confidential information into AI tools avoiding the use of AI content from copyrighted information.

4. article seven of the IPRA code to ensure truth and accuracy by ensuring AI content is fact-checked by humans with relevant expertise ensuring AI content is corrected by humans to remove bias.

5. article eight of the IPRA code to not disseminate misleading information by exercising proper care to avoid the dissemination of misinformation
ensuring any inadvertent dissemination of misinformation is corrected promptly.

Adopted October 2023

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ABOUT IPRA

IPRA, the International Public Relations Association, was established in 1955, and is the leading global network for PR professionals in their personal capacity. IPRA aims to advance trusted communication and the ethical practice of public relations. We do this through networking, our code of conduct and intellectual leadership of the profession.

IPRA is the organiser of public relations’ annual global competition, the Golden World Awards for Excellence (GWA). IPRA’s services enable PR professionals to collaborate and be recognised.

Members create content via our Thought Leadership essays, social media and our consultative status with the United Nations. GWA winners demonstrate PR excellence. IPRA welcomes all those who share our aims and who wish to be part of the IPRA worldwide fellowship

By PRNigeria