Living the IT Revolution
Historically, security has always played an important role in inter-human communication. In ancient times, security in communication was achieved by different methods of cryptography.
In today’s digital world, however, the advent of the internet has shaken up the concept of security, leading to a broader concept: ‘trust’. Trust is an essential pre-requisite for connecting people in human and enterprise transactions, especially in a society such as ours built on the rule of law and stable democratic institutions.
However, with information communication technologies (ICT) increasingly pervading all human activity, trust and security are not automatically guaranteed. Worrying developments with respect to crime and erosion of privacy are being witnessed.
Excellent basic research, and then?
Regulatory bodies such as the European Commission and national governments are introducing regulations urging industry and service providers to invest into innovative solutions.
The European Commission’s Digital Agenda for Europe 2010-2020, for example, is particularly pertinent to ICT and points to the need to strengthen the passage from research to innovation and actual marketable products.
Horizon 2020, the forthcoming EU Framework programme for research and innovation 2014-2020, will also be geared towards not repeating the ‘old European paradox: excellent basic research and then … nothing’, also called ‘the valley of death concept’.
Equally, the European Commission’s new Common strategic framework for future EU research and innovation funding will try to build a bridge over this valley based on three pillars: research-demonstration-production, as recommended in the Key Enabling Technologies (KET) Final Report of June 2011.
Emerging solutions
On an industry level: solutions are emerging. For example, Microsoft’s recent U-Prove technology provides cryptographic techniques for strong security with additional privacy protection capabilities that include minimal disclosure, unlinkability and untraceability.
On an advisory level: several initiatives are up and running that deal with the issues of security, privacy and trust in the digital world and their societal impact.
For example: the Digital Enlightenment Forum is an independent international initiative founded under Luxembourg law in February 2011, of which Professor Metakides is President.
On a European level: there is the high-level advisory body RISEPTIS (‘Research and Innovation for Security, Privacy and Trustworthiness in the Information Society’) supporting the EU’s FP7 Think-Trust project, of which Professor Metakides is a member.
Recommendations
Professor Metakides concluded the seminar with several recommendations at EU level. He would like to see, for instance, the European Commission, together with the EU Member States and industrial stakeholders, give high priority to the development of a common EU framework for identity and authentication management, and work towards the further development of the EU data protection and privacy legal frameworks, as part of an overall consistent ecosystem of law and technology.
Links
www.trustindigitallife.eu
www.think-trust.eu/riseptis.html
www.future-internet.eu/home.html
ec.europa.eu/information_society/digital-agenda/index_en.htm
ec.europa.eu/research/horizon2020/index_en.cfm?pg=home
Biography
You can find out more information about Professor Metakides on his website:
www.metakides.net/business.htm