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Cyberspace specialists gather in The Hague for global conference

Xinhua, April 15, 2015 Adjust font size:

Around 1,400 specialists from about 160 countries are gearing up to take part in the fourth Global Conference on Cyberspace (GCCS) in The Hague on Thursday and Friday.

During the conference, representatives from across the globe, from governments, businesses, knowledge institutions and civil society, will discuss several main opportunities, dilemmas and challenges regarding the evolution of the Internet. The key objectives are to improve practical cooperation and knowledge exchange in cyberspace, to enhance cyber capacity-building, and to discuss norms for responsible behavior in cyberspace.

"Most states sent a minister or senior official from the ministry and all relevant sectors on cyber space are present," Annelou van Egmond, spokesperson for the Dutch foreign affairs ministry and the GCCS, told Xinhua on Wednesday. "In addition, major companies like Huawei, Google and Facebook are also represented."

"During several separate sessions, the representatives will talk about all the preconditions necessary to make the Internet ready for the future," she added. "They will speak about Internet governance and international cooperation, freedom and privacy online, the digital divide, the Internet as an enabler for social and economic development, cyber security and cyber crime."

Following the previous conferences on cyberspace held in London (2011), Budapest (2012) and Seoul (2013), the Netherlands' Global Conference on Cyberspace aims to achieve international agreements on cyberspace.

One of the most concrete achievements of the next conference is already known, with the launch of a Global Forum on Cyber Expertise (GFCE), based in The Netherlands. This is a global platform that contributes to cyber capacity-building and stimulates the sharing of expertise and experiences in the field of cyber security.

"This platform was needed to exchange knowledge and to help countries with a problem in finding solutions," said Van Egmond, "By matching supply and demand, countries that lack knowledge in certain cyber areas can benefit from the knowledge and expertise that will be provided by countries and companies with more experience in cyber matters."

"Some countries already have laws on this matter and some don't," she added. "Take an Internet fraud case for instance. Countries without laws on cyber crime cannot do anything about it. So why not exchange these laws if they work in other countries? Although the platform's base is The Netherlands the goal is to get project groups with five or six participating countries across the globe."

The next GCCS host will be announced during the conference. Endit