FIDE Anti-Cheating Guidelines

A few days after my recent post on the 2014 adoption of the FIDE Anti-Cheating Proposal, I discovered news about the document in 2015 ACP General Assembly and Poll. This included the '2. ACP Poll: Anti-Cheating Committee' and a mention that 'You can find the Anti-Cheating Guidelines here', which led to the FIDE Handbook:-

A. Administrative Subjects
[...]
09. FIDE Code of Ethics
11. Anti-Cheating Guidelines
[...]

As far as I can tell (what's subject 10?), the guidelines were published before summer 2015 and incorporate the same document approved near the end of 2014.

I've already discussed the most recent FIDE Congress, Abu Dhabi, September 2015, in several previous posts -- see, for example, The Resurrection of Agon (on this blog) and Whither the World Championship? (on my WCC blog) -- and the Anti-Cheating Guidelines also played an important role at Abu Dhabi. Here are selected bullets from the document 'FIDE Congress, Abu Dhabi, Executive Board, 7-8 September 2015, Minutes':-

5.3. Arbiters' Commission. • The Commission’s next project is to train the arbiters in anti-cheating regulations, in cooperation with the ACC. This will be mainly done by Internet seminars, so arbiters become familiar with the regulations and trained permanently on the Internet, to minimise the expenses.

5.7. Constitutional Commission. • The Executive Board approved the report of the Commission, included the indications concerning the appointment and functioning of Ethics Commission’s investigative chambers on cheating cases. The Executive Board, on the other hand, bearing in mind the technicalities of the subject of the report, recommends to organise a joint meeting of the chairmen of the Constitutional Commission, Ethics Commission, Anti-cheating Committee, with the presence of the FIDE officials, if available, aimed to finalise the publication and dissemination of a consolidated text on FIDE rules concerning anti-cheating.

5.20. Online Commission. • Mr. Stubenvoll said QC [Qualification Commission] in its meeting was against the proposal to have ratings for these online matches and the main reasons that we are not against the idea, the idea is very good but there are not current regulations and we have to be careful to avoid cheating and that the main principles.

5.21.1. FIDE World Cup 2015. • The event shall be held in Baku, Azerbaijan, 10 September – 5 October 2015. Mr. Makropoulos said everything was prepared there. The Anti-Cheating Committee is ready. Ms. Tsedenova has visited recently and checked all facilities.

That excerpt for '5.20. Online Commission' doesn't make any sense to me and would be worth a separate look, both for its anti-cheating direction and for its current status re online play. The two most important anti-cheating commission/committee reports from the minutes referred to annexes, excerpts from which I incorporate here.

5.16. Ethics Commission. • Annex 52 is Minutes of the meeting in Abu Dhabi.

Annex 52: Anti-Cheating • In terms of the FIDE Statutes, independent Investigatory Chambers may be appointed by the Presidential Board and charged to investigate and submit motivated reports to the Ethics Commission on specific cases or typologies of cases. The Presidential Board in Abu Dhabi will be asked to approve separate Investigatory Chambers for three specific cheating cases as well as a standing Anti-Cheating Investigatory Chamber. As a consequence, the Ethics Commission expects to receive at least three cheating-related cases for decision in the very near future. Of course everyone agrees that the nature of these cases calls for expeditious judging.

5.19. Anti-Cheating Committee. • Annex 46 is Minutes of the meeting in Abu Dhabi.

Annex 46: The Anti-Cheating Committee (ACC), the FIDE successor of the ACP/FIDE Anti-Cheating Committee, was set up following a decision by the Presidential Board held in Sochi on 8-9 November 2014. Nominations to the Committee have been finalized in December and the Committee started operation on January 1, 2015. Originally it was FIDE’s intention to grant the Committee a Commission status but the lack of a quorum on the final day of the FIDE General Assembly at Tromso caused FIDE lawyers to call for prudence.

Annex 46 also included the following bulleted paragraphs.

• Ongoing investigations.
• Computer-assisted fraud detection system and Internet-Based Screening Tool. ['hindered by substantial technical difficulties']
• Developing a [web] site.
• Tournament inspections.
• Hindering external communication. ['hinder fraudulent transmissions during chess events']
• Improving procedures.
• AC Compliance form.
• AC Guideline awareness.
• Transmission delay.
• From Guidelines to Regulations.
• RCF Proposal. [Russian Chess Federation; see Annex 53]

There's so much more that I could discuss here, that I don't know where to start. Add to that the 2015 World Cup that was ongoing at the time of the FIDE Congress -- Unprecedented Anti-Cheating Measures At Baku World Cup (Chess.com) -- and it's clear that I have to come back to this subject another time.

The ACP Poll that I mentioned in the first paragraph asked 'How do you rate' various aspects of the anti-cheating program ('ACP’s involvement', 'the Anti-Cheating Guidelines', etc.). At this point I would answer 'Good' or 'Very good' to all aspects. But, as they say, the proof of the pudding is in the eating.