Europe Declares War on Cyber Crime
1500 cybersecurity experts from 23 countries will meet in Lille, France at the International Forum on Cyber Crime (FIC). Topics of debate and discussion will include identity theft, data piracy, virus attacks, electronic fraud, network penetration, botnets and espionage. This summit represents an effort to foster international cooperation in securing cyberspace and reconcile differing privacy and intellectual property laws from across the world.
Gen. Roland Gilles
The event will begin Wednesday, inaugurated by Gen. Roland Gilles, Director-General of the French Gendarmerie, and Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux will preside over the event.
French Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux
One topic of discussion will be the Electronic Identity Cards (EIC) issued by Belgium and Italy. In Belgium, through the use of specialized card readers, websites can verify a person’s identity using these cards, and card holders are asked to confirm any attempts to read their identity card online. These cards help guarantee a user’s “e-reputation,” and American companies operating social networking sites in the EU may be required to make their sites compatible with the technology. Additionally, EICs help combat pedophilia on the internet, by verifying a user’s age before logging into age-restricted chat rooms and groups.
Additionally, privacy issues that have arisen as American companies expand their operations into the European Union will be discussed. There has been considerable friction with European privacy laws as sites like YouTube and Facebook have become widely adopted in Europe.
In Switzerland, Google Street View has faced numerous legal challenges arising from Swiss privacy laws, which require companies that host images of citizens to obtain their consent before they are posted. Facebook has faced similar challenges in Switzerland and Germany, and three executives from Google were given suspended prison sentences in Italy last month over an offensive video uploaded to YouTube.
The Internet is treated considerably differently in France than in America. The French High Court ruled last year that Internet access was a basic human right, striking down the creation of French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s HADOPI agency that would have policed the internet. Also, there is a concept in French law called the “droit à l’oubli,” or the “Right of Exclusion,” that requires social networking sites like Facebook to remove data pertinent to users who do not wish to be included in the network.
The French-language newspaper Le Figaro describes Facebook’s lack of consent requirements as “far from risqué,” but notes a pair of high-profile hacks that took control of the social networking site and Twitter in the past year have provoked public concern. Also, the French government’s National Commission for Computer Liberty (CNIL) has recommended voluntary verification systems for data sharers as opposed to legal intervention.
The EU does not currently have any comprehensive cybersecurity agency, nor has it standardized personal privacy laws from member nations, though it has made progress in the field of intellectual property. As recent botnet takedowns have shown, cooperation with local law enforcement and international litigation are essential weapons in the fight against cyber crime, so until the rules of cyberspace are defined on a global scale, cyber criminals will likely keep the upper hand.
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