The Internet Society Board noted that in 2011, in what has become known as ‘Arab Spring,’ the Internet gave voice to people’s aspirations. "The Internet played a vital role in generating awareness of and support for the efforts of those seeking to bring about change," said Raul Echeberria, Chairman of the Internet Society’s Board of Trustees. "The Internet shaped a new generation who are connected to the world and who are global citizens, unconstrained by borders, time, and distance."

The Board also noted that the same technology that benefits billions of people throughout the world has also raised some challenges. Among them, it was observed that certain governments control their citizen’s access and use of the global network in order to meet economic, security, or political objectives in an evolving policy landscape. For example, DNS blocking and filtering are among the measures used by some to block access to websites.

Other measures used include surveillance technology or suspension of Internet access.

The Internet Society Board cautioned against resorting to technological shortcuts to achieve public policy objectives, as such actions can threaten the good functioning of the global Internet as a single, unified, and global communications network.  While the Board recognized that governments have the responsibility to guarantee law and order for their citizens, it held the view that the right to freedom of expression should also be guaranteed.

"The Internet Society has always been focused on Internet freedom, which is the very embodiment of freedom of expression," added Echeberria. "These actions by some governments to limit access to the Internet are sometimes without due regard to the impact on an individual’s ability to exercise their fundamental human rights, and include attempts to control social networks. This can be seen as an infringement of the right to peaceful assembly, as guaranteed by Article 20 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights."

"Limitations to the exercise of human rights should be the exception and not the rule, a principle which applies both to the online and offline world,"

stated Internet Society President and CEO Lynn St. Amour. "Any restrictions should respect due process and the provisions outlined in international human rights law, such as necessity and proportionality."

The open, decentralized, and global nature of the Internet provides a foundation for unprecedented growth in freedom of expression and access to information and knowledge. "The increasing pressure to limit access to the Internet has escalated the sense of urgency in addressing this situation,"

added St. Amour. "We will continue our efforts in this important policy area and work to bring attention to the impact of Internet freedom on other aspects of human rights."

About the Internet Society

The Internet Society is the world’s trusted independent source of leadership for Internet policy, technology standards, and future development. Based on its principled vision and substantial technological foundation, the Internet Society works with its members and Chapters around the world to promote the continued evolution and growth of the open Internet through dialog among companies, governments, and other organizations around the world. For more information, see: http://www.internetsociety.org.

The action plan recaps many transparency initiatives from the first three years of the Obama administration, such as the government-generated data set repository Data.gov, a governmentwide push to respond more quickly and fully to Freedom of Information Act requests and to declassify outdated national security information, and a recently launched website for citizens to petition the government.

The action plan also includes several new initiatives.

Among them are Foreignassistance.gov, a website where agencies that administer foreign aid will be required to post detailed and standardized project and budget information so officials can better evaluate those programs’ effectiveness, and Expertnet, an online forum where government officials can link up with private sector experts.

The Open Government Partnership is a voluntary association of 50 nations committed to creating detailed open government plans and to sharing best practices. Before its official launch Tuesday, the organization was led by an eight-nation steering committee chaired by the United States and Brazil.

The steering committee published a list of about 80 countries that are eligible to join the partnership based on a rating system that includes budget transparency and the income disclosure required of public officials.

The partnership’s aim is to be a "race to the top" for nations that already are committed to open government, not a ploy to promote transparency in closed regimes such as China and Iran, Nathaniel Heller, an international transparency advocate who helped develop the organization’s technical capacity, told Nextgov earlier this month.

The U.S. plan also involves packaging its transparency initiatives to be used easily in other nations. The White House plans to publish the source code for its We the People petition page, for instance, so it can be adopted by other nations or by state and local governments, the plan said.

The United States and India also have partnered to release a standardized version of Data.gov and the Indian data set repository India.gov.in, called "Data.gov in a box."

Early assessments of the U.S. action plan from transparency advocates were positive.

Katherine McFate, President of OMB Watch, called the plan "bold" and "ambitious." Former Clinton Administration Chief of Staff John Podesta, now president of the Center for American Progress said the plan put the Obama Administration on track to becoming the most transparent presidential administration in history.

"As a leader of open government initiatives undertaken by the Clinton administration," Podesta said in a statement, "I know it’s difficult to move bureaucracies on these issues…The initiatives announced today will improve democratic accountability and boost public trust in government–a trust that is sorely needed today, and which governments around the world must daily aim to restore."

Source: NextGov

A new report from Eurofound examines how governments and social partners have sought to help SMEs weather the crisis, how local partnerships have helped SMEs maintain employment during this turbulent time, and presents the views of the social partners on the situation of such companies. It also looks at the extent of social dialogue in these smaller enterprises. The report finds that – in many countries – working conditions and working hours are more flexible and informally arranged than in larger companies, as is the manner in which work is organised. Moreover, the crisis seems to have made companies seek to become more flexible, as they try to cope with shifting external circumstances and demands.

Download SMEs in the crisis: employment, industrial relations and local partnerships.

Source: EuroFound

This Forum was the first of its kind at the international level to examine media and information literacy as a combined set of competencies (knowledge, skills and attitudes). Issues relating to importance of media, Internet and other information providers and their impact on learning, cultures and public opinion, as well as the empowering effect of MIL practices and global Internet governance were among the main topics discussed at the Forum.

Over 200 participants representing all regions of the world, including educators, information and media experts, civil society actors and social scientists, gathered to discuss MIL and share experience and knowledge. In the Fez Declaration, the participants of the Forum “fully endorse the far-reaching vision that today’s digital age and convergence of communication technologies necessitate the combination of media literacy and information literacy in order to achieve sustainable human development, build participatory civic societies, and contribute to the consolidation of sustainable world peace, freedom, democracy, good governance and the fostering of constructive intercultural knowledge, dialogue and mutual understanding”. They call on all stakeholders to reaffirm their commitment to initiatives relating to MIL.
In connection with this event, the MIL Curriculum for Teachers launched at the Forum was translated into Arabic and French, and the Arab Region’s Consultation on Adaptation of the Curriculum was organized. Participating countries from the region included Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Morocco. A plan of action is being consolidated for piloting of the MIL Curriculum in teacher training institutions in Morocco, Lebanon and Oman. Discussion is on-going with other countries in the region.

In addition, the first International University Network on MIL and Intercultural Dialogue was launched through a partnership with the United Nations Alliance of Civilization. This will facilitate follow-up on the recommendations of the Forum and particularly the Fez Declaration on Media and Information Literacy. The Network on MIL and Intercultural Dialogue includes universities from Australia, Brazil, China, Egypt, Italy, Jamaica, Morocco and Spain.

UNESCO’s global action to promote media and information literate societies has at its basis the development of knowledge societies and free independent and pluralistic media and information providers. The Organization’s strategy includes: integration of MIL into all levels of education systems, particularly through the adaptation the MIL Curriculum for Teachers; setting up of the MIL University Network; facilitation of international cooperation; preparation of a Global Framework on MIL Indicators; development of Guidelines for Preparing National MIL Policies and Strategies; and establishment of an International Clearinghouse on MIL in cooperation with the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations.

Source: Unesco

A United Nations report said Friday that disconnecting people from the internet is a human rights violation and against international law. The report railed against France and the United Kingdom, which have passed laws to remove accused copyright scofflaws from the internet. It also protested blocking internet access to quell political unrest (.pdf).

While blocking and filtering measures deny users access to specific content on the Internet, states have also taken measures to cut off access to the Internet entirely. The Special Rapporteur considers cutting off users from internet access, regardless of the justification provided, including on the grounds of violating intellectual property rights law, to be disproportionate and thus a violation of article 19, paragraph 3, of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

The report continues:

The Special Rapporteur calls upon all states to ensure that Internet access is maintained at all times, including during times of political unrest. In particular, the Special Rapporteur urges States to repeal or amend existing intellectual copyright laws which permit users to be disconnected from Internet access, and to refrain from adopting such laws.

The report, by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression, comes the same day an internet-monitoring firm detected that two thirds of Syria’s internet access has abruptly gone dark, in what is likely a government response to unrest in that country.

Source: Wired

Link to the UN Assembly report (pdf): Report of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, Frank La Rue.

Without the Internet, and social media in particular, the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt would simply have never occurred.

Sarkozy’s problem is that, like other political leaders, he doesn’t like a medium over which the government does not have final authority. With the Internet’s arrival, lofty concepts such as freedom of speech and freedom of thought are actually gaining traction. Prior to this, freedom of speech was meaningful only to those who powerful people who could use the printing presses and broadcast media.

Earlier this week in the UK, for example, football star Ryan Giggs filed a lawsuit against Twitter and thousands of Twitter users who ignored a court-ordered injunction that prohibited the media from identifying the celebrities involved in an extramarital affair case in which Giggs is a central figure. The so-called super injunction is truly odious, and prohibits newspapers and other media from even saying the injunction exists. In the old model of centralized, one-to-many mass media, the hiding of inconvenient truths was easily achieved. No longer.

This alarms politicians such as Sarkozy. In his opening address at the E-G8, he told his audience of digital luminaries from around the world that, "The universe you represent is not a parallel universe. Nobody should forget that governments are the only legitimate representatives of the will of the people in our democracies. To forget this is to risk democratic chaos and anarchy."

Sarkozy sounds like a music recording industry executive arguing that MP3s and file-sharing have already created chaos and anarchy in the music world. The music industry has responded to the democratization of music distribution with intransigence and lawsuits. They sought a legal solution to a business model disruption and are now paying the price. For his part, Sarkozy has enshrined in French law that anyone caught downloading copyright-protected music from the Internet without permission more than three times should have their Internet access cut off. I’m not the only one to view this approach as truly asinine. Last week the U.N.’s independent expert on freedom of speech, Frank La Rue, said that politicians promoting this response don’t understand that access to the Internet has become a basic human right.

Given his views on the Internet and music, it is not surprising that most Internet-industry delegates at the E-G8 shivered when Sarkozy said that, "We need to hear your aspirations, your needs," but that "You need to hear our limits, our red lines."

During one of the E-G8 panel discussions, Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt responded to Sarkozy’s attitude by saying, "You want to tread lightly on regulating brand new, innovative industries… Clearly you need some level of regulation for the evil stuff. But I would be careful about overregulating the Internet."

"I cannot imagine any delegate in this conference [who] would want Internet growth to be significantly slowed by a government that slows it down because of some stupid rule that they put in place," he said.

Schmidt has the proper perspective. The appropriate debate is not between Sarkozy’s oppressive approach as opposed to no regulation whatsoever. Obviously the rule of rule should prevail in cyberspace just as it does in the bricks-and-mortar world.

But the Internet is changing every institution in society. It enables new approaches to innovation, requiring new thinking about patents and copyright. It renders old institutions naked, requiring more transparency on the part of governments and corporations. It disrupts old models of learning and pedagogy demanding a change a relationship between students and teachers in the learning process. It offers new models of democracy based on a culture of public discourse, in turn compelling old style politicians to engage their citizens. It turns intellectual property into bits, that don’t know the old rules that governed atoms of how to behave. It drops the transaction costs of dissent, subjecting dictators and tyrants to the power of mass participation. It breaks down national boundaries and requiring a rethinking of how peoples everywhere can cooperate to solve global problems. And for the first time in history children are an authority on the most important innovation changing every institution in society.

Predictably, old style political leaders comfortable with the industrial age are dazed and confused, and many feel threatened. A new communications medium is causing disruption, dislocation and uncertainty. And leaders of old paradigms with vested interests fear what they do not understand, and react with coolness or even hostility. Rather than innovating and opening up they often hunker down, trying to strengthen old outdated rules and approaches.

Let’s hope the representatives from Tunisia and Egypt talk sense into Sarkozy and the other leaders when they meet today. Yes, the Internet should be on the G8 agenda, but not from the perspective that this technology poses some menace to the world’s democracies. Rather, G8 leaders should discuss how to champion and promote the growth of the Internet within their own countries and around the world.

Rather than discussing the constraints that should be put on Internet users in democratic countries, they should focus their energies on how to unconstrain users in non-democracies such as China.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/don-tapscott/we-need-more-internet-not_b_868162.html

We understand that the French Presidency of the G8 is holding a G8 internet meeting — the “eG8 Forum” — immediately before the G8 Summit in Deauville, with a view to shaping the agenda of the G8 Summit regarding key global internet policy issues. This meeting is significant in that this is the first year that the internet’s role in society and the economy is explicitly on the G8 agenda.

As key world leaders, your policies have a major influence on internet policy globally. Regrettably, certain policies being implemented in the most developed economies are undermining the open and neutral internet — the very qualities that represent the essence of its democratic and economic potential. We believe that G8 Member States should use the e-G8 meeting as an opportunity to publicly commit to expanding internet access for all, combating digital censorship and surveillance, limiting online intermediary liability, and upholding principles of net neutrality.

Internet Access for All

We are particularly concerned about the increasing trend of nations cutting off citizens’ access to the Internet and mobile networks in times of crisis, as Egypt, Libya, Iran, China, Nepal, and Burma have all done. In many if not all of these countries, we see how important access to the Internet is as a gateway to a plethora of others civil, political, and fundamental human rights.

Many G8 countries are actively pursuing policies that would similarly seek to restrict and control access; these policies legitimize actions of repressive regimes and threaten the core of the internet economy. As many nations endeavor to improve basic and universal access, the increase of restrictive policies in both the developed and developing world is a regressive and deeply worrying trend.

Freedom from Online Censorship & Surveillance

Simultaneously, repressive regimes are harnessing the internet’s power for their own purposes, often with the help of multinational corporations based in G8 countries. We urge you to end the sale of these technologies both at home and abroad, and put an end to these gross invasions of user privacy and security.

Online Intermediary Liability and Intellectual Property

To defend freedom of speech online it is critical that we resist mounting pressure from the entertainment industry and other sectors to impose greater intermediary liability on online service providers for the actions of their users through instruments like HADOPI and ACTA.

In this regard, we urge you to follow the example of the Brazilian government’s Principles for the Governance and Use of the Internet, specifically #7 which reads: “All action taken against illicit activity on the network must be aimed at those directly responsible for such activities, and not at the means of access and transport, always upholding the fundamental principles of freedom, privacy and the respect for human rights.” (1)

Net Neutrality

We further call on you to commit your nations to protecting net neutrality — the principle that all web traffic should be treated on an equitable basis no matter where it originated or the type of data being transmitted.

These are some of the key Internet governance issues which we feel merit and require the attention of the G8. We also draw your attention to two comprehensive declarations of principles we believe should guide nation states in Internet governance:

• The 10 Internet Rights and Principles developed under the aegis of the Internet Rights and Principles Coalition. (2)
• Assembly Declaration of the right of Communication, written at the World Social Forum 2011.( 3)

We would also like to highlight our concerns regarding the planning of the e-G8. We join our voices to the Internet Governance Caucus4 which expresses our collective concern about the lack of representation of civil society at the e-G8 and G8 meetings this year.

Contrary to current best practices in policymaking, the invite list has been limited primarily to representatives of government and corporate leaders, who already enjoy disproportionately large influence over Internet regulation. Specifically, we are deeply concerned that corporate interests will dominate discussions at the e-G8 and G8 summits; issues like strict intellectual property enforcement and increasing online intermediary liability seem likely to take primacy over citizen-centered policies like net neutrality, Free Software, and combating online censorship.

As corporations pay $100,000 for seats at the e-G8 table, few representatives of civil society are present to advocate for the priorities of citizen-users of the world. We are at a critical point in the history of the Internet and the struggle for human rights. As the elected leadership of some of the world’s most powerful nations, we urge you to act now to uphold and defend the principles of digital rights and internet freedom, not just for your citizens, but for people all over the world.

Signed,
Access – www.accessnow.org
Association for Progressive Communications (APC) – www.apc.org
Association pour la Taxation des Transactions financière et l’Aide aux Citoyens (ATTAC) – www.attac.org
Center for Internet and Society – www.cis-india.org/
Citizen Lab, Munk School of Government, University of Toronto – www.citizenlab.org
Communication Is Your Right! – www.communicationisyourright.org/
Digital Democracy – www.digital-democracy.org
Digitale Gesellschaft – www.digitalegesellschaft.de
Electronic Frontier Finland (Effi) – www.effi.org
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) – www.eff.org
European Digital Rights (EDRi) – www.edri.org
Fédération SUD-PTT (syndicat poste et télécommunication) http://www.sudptt.org/
Fundacion Escuela Latinoamericana de Redes (EsLaRed) — www.eslared.org.ve/
The Guardian Project – www.guardianproject.info
Instituto Nupef – www.nupef.org.br/
Internet Rights & Principles Coalition – www.internetrightsandprinciples.org
The Julia Group/Juliagruppen – www.juliagruppen.se
La Quadrature du Net (LQDN) – www.laquadrature.net
May First/People Link – www.mayfirst.org
MobileActive.org – www.mobileactive.org
Movements.org – www.movements.org
Net Users’ Rights Protection Association (NURPA) – www.nurpa.be/
Open Rights Group (ORG) – www.openrightsgroup.org
Open Source Initiative (OSI) – www.opensource.org/
Panos London – www.panos.org.uk
Privacy International – www.privacyinternational.org/
Progressive Technology Project — www.progressivetech.org/
The Public Sphere Project – www.publicsphereproject.org/
Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF) – www.rsf.org
Tactical Tech – www.tacticaltech.org
WITNESS – www.witness.org
WLAN Slovenia, Open Wireless Network -www.wlan-si.net/
Van Reepinghen & Simon – www.ip-web-law.com
VECAM – www.vecam.org
Virtual Activism – www.virtualactivism.org
10 COM – www.10com.eu/

1. (1). The full document of which is available at: http://www.cgi.br/english/regulations/resolution2009-003.htm
2. (2.) The English version is available here: http://internetrightsandprinciples.org/node/397 and in French here: http://internetrightsandprinciples.org/node/400
3. (3.) http://fsm2011.org/en/the-right-to-inform-and-be-informed
4. (4.) http://www.igcaucus.org/open-letter-president-sarkozy-eg8-meeting-plan

The network is the UK’s biggest ever cross-sector volunteer force, according to a statement from prime minister David Cameron, who urged even more members of the public to get involved.

“By supporting this vital campaign we really can become the first nation in the world to get everyone online and ensure that something the vast majority of us take for granted can be enjoyed by all of us,” he said.

The 100,000 volunteers are made up from workers at Mecca Bingo, post offices, libraries, Jobcentre Plus, retailers including John Lewis, Age UK and 40,000 scouts.

The ways in which the volunteers will help get people online will vary, according to a spokeswoman for Race Online. For example, John Lewis is opening up training programmes, while the scouts will visit elderly people in care homes.

The campaign also includes a new array of low price recycled PC products from Microsoft, Remploy and XMA, which range from £92 to £120.

The fact that the volunteer force is so wide and varied, and that it is to be combined with low cost PCs, should bring a certain amount of success to the strategy.

However, there are a large number of adults who have shown little interest in getting online, and have proved to some degree that they can live without the internet. So it will be interesting to see how Lane Fox’s strategy pans out. Critics argue that the most socially excluded and vulnerable will still lose out.

An investigation by The Independent has found that the total cost of Labour’s 10 most notorious IT failures is equivalent to more than half of the budget for Britain’s schools last year. Parliament’s spending watchdog has described the projects as "fundamentally flawed" and blamed ministers for "stupendous incompetence" in managing them.

Further evidence has emerged over the failings of Labour’s most costly programme, the mammoth £12.7bn IT scheme to revolutionise the NHS. The Independent has learnt that just 160 health organisations out of about 9,000 are using electronic patient records delivered under the scheme. The vast majority of those were GP practices. New figures have also revealed that millions of pounds have been paid out in legal fees. The taxpayer has footed a £39.2m bill for "legal and commercial support" for the National Programme for IT (NPfIT).

Alan Milburn, the former health secretary, said in 2001 that everyone would have access to their health records online by 2005, but it is understood that the Department for Health is still "years away" from fulfilling the pledge.

Government departments right across Whitehall have been guilty of overseeing embarrassing IT failures. A project that was meant to save the Department for Transport (DfT) about £57m eventually cost £81m, and workers at the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) were forced to brush up on their language skills when computer systems gave them messages in German.

Another ill-fated IT scheme, designed to allocate subsidies to farms, cost the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs about £350m and left British farmers more than £1bn out of pocket. Last year the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) warned that the system was already "at risk of becoming obsolete". In 2004, the Department for Justice gave the go-ahead for the National Offender Management Information System (C-Nomis) to be rolled out to prisons and the probation service in an attempt to make sharing information about offenders easier. But in 2007, when the estimated cost doubled to more than £600m and senior officials questioned the validity of the project, it was abandoned – after £155m had been wasted.

The MoD’s Defence Information Infrastructure project is currently running more than £180m over budget and 18 months late, and is now set to cost £7.1bn. Last year, Edward Leigh, chairman of the PAC, said: "No proper pilot for this highly complex programme was carried out, and entirely inadequate research led to a major miscalculation of the condition of the Department’s buildings in which the new system would be installed."

Other botched IT projects include the identity cards scheme; the Libra system for modernising magistrates’ courts; an attempt to move the Government’s GCHQ computer systems into a new building which ended up costing more than £300m; the Benefit Processing Replacement Programme; and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s Prism system.

IT experts blamed ministers for being too easily wooed by suppliers. Insiders said a lack of expertise within the Government about the technology industry meant they were willing to believe claims made by major IT firms before contracts were awarded.

Several projects are now under renewed threat of being cut back or abandoned altogether as Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, has targeted them as an area of government spending that can be reined in as he attempts to tackle Britain’s record £175bn deficit.

Tony Collins, an expert on the Government’s IT failures, said Labour had displayed an "irrational exuberance" for IT projects that has often led them to throw good money after bad at failing schemes. "There are too few people in the hierarchy of Labour who understand IT enough to understand that it is not a talisman – there is nothing magical about it."

David Cameron, the Tory leader, has signalled a move away from big IT projects, suggesting he will use technology to increase the transparency of government. "It is easy to make these noises out of office," said Mr Collins. "Once you’ve got civil servants giving you a host of reasons why you should not be more open, I fear the Tories will sink into the same depths of secrecy that Labour has found itself in."

Botched projects: The cost of failure

£12.7bn National Programme for IT (NHS)

It was meant to revolutionise the way the health service worked. But far from heralding a new age of efficiency, the National Programme for IT is now widely perceived as the greatest government IT white elephant of history. As well as the huge costs involved, suppliers have walked away, projects are running years behind schedule, while medical professionals have complained that they were never consulted on what they wanted the new system to achieve.

£7.1bn Defence Information Infrastructure (DII)

It seemed like a good idea at the time. In 2005, the Ministry of Defence decided to offer a contract to a consortium of suppliers to replace the hundreds of different computer systems being used by the military with a single system that would be used by the army, navy and air force, as well as the MoD itself. It was to be used by 300,000 people across 2,000 sites. However, it is running more than £180m over budget and 18 months late. A parliamentary inquiry also warned that forces’ reliance on older systems put them at risk of a security breach.

£5bn National Identity Scheme

Originally budgeted at £3bn, the Government’s plan for new identity cards, containing biometric data and linked to a central database, soon came under heavy criticism from civil liberty campaigners. As the costs spiralled, so the Home Office began to water down the aims of the scheme to assuage the critics. In July, Alan Johnson announced that the cards would no longer be compulsory, while moves to force all airport workers to use the cards were also abandoned.

£400m Libra system (for magistrates’ courts)

An attempt to bring records used by magistrates courts into the digital age backfired when trying to introduce one universal IT system to all courts descended into a costly mess. Fujitsu originally bid £146m to deliver the Libra system in 1998. However, the project proved more complicated than anticipated, and costs have now been put at more than £400m.

£350m Single Payment Scheme system (SPS)

The Single Payment Scheme system was designed in 2003 to be a sophisticated way of giving farmers their subsidies, by mapping their land and working out their level of payment. But failures with the IT systems being used mean that farmers were left short-changed. In 2006, around £1.28bn of the £1.5bn subsidies destined for British farmers still had not been given out. The Rural Payments Agency overseeing the project was ordered to make 23 major changes to the system. Despite the £350m spent on the technology, the Public Accounts Committee warned last year that it was already “at risk of becoming obsolete”.

£300m GCHQ "box move" of technology

When the Government’s intelligence organisation, GCHQ, decided to move its complex computer systems into a new building in 1997, the projected £41m cost was so small that officials believed it could be absorbed within existing budgets. That was until the Curse of the Government IT Project struck. Costs of the so-called “box move” soon began to rise out of control. In 2003, the National Audit Office (NAO) put the costs at more than £300m. Edward Leigh, Tory chairman of the Commons Public Accounts Committee, called the original budget “staggeringly inaccurate”.

£155m National Offender Management Information System (C-Nomis)

In an attempt to make sharing information about offenders easier, the Department for Justice gave the go-ahead for the National Offender Management Information System (C-Nomis) to be rolled out to prisons and the probation service. As the estimated cost doubled to more than £600m and senior officials questioned the whole point of the project, it was abandoned in 2007, with £155m already spent.

£106m Benefit Processing Replacement Programme

In June 2006, the Department for Work and Pensions confidently assured Parliament that new funding for its Benefit Processing Replacement Programme (BPRP) had been approved. So it came as a surprise to many when it emerged just three months later that the project had been quietly scrapped. Little information has emerged on why BPRP was abandoned, but the Government has admitted that £106m had already been spent on it before it pulled the plug.

£88.5m Prism IT project

Undeterred by past failures, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) thought it would be a good idea in 2002 to order a new computer system for their 200 offices around the globe. The result was the Prism IT project, seemingly a bargain at just £54m. However, delays and costs have risen, while the contractor was even forced to temporarily halt the scheme in 2005 while an investigation took place into its various problems. The system has not proved a hit with staff. One wrote in 2004: “In all the FCO’s long history of ineptly implemented IT initiatives, Prism is the most badly designed, ill-considered one of the lot.”

£81m Shared Services Centre

To officials at the Department for Transport, the Shared Services Centre seemed to good to be true: not only would it integrate the human resources and financial services of the department and its various agencies, it would even save the taxpayer £57m. Unfortunately, those hopes were dashed as the scheme became another example of an IT project going horribly wrong. Workers at the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) were forced to brush up on their language skills as computer systems gave them messages in German. It will now cost £81m, a failure in management that the Public Accounts Committee described as a display of “stupendous incompetence”.

TOTAL: £26.3bn

Source: The Independent

Toward this end, the Arab Social Media Report will aim to inform a better understanding of the impact of social media on development and growth in the Arab region by exploring the following:

• What are the penetration trends of social networking services in the Arab region? What is the growth rate, and what is the demographic and gender breakdown?
• What factors affect the adoption of these platforms in different Arab countries (e.g., income, youth population, digital access, Internet freedom, etc.)?
• What is the impact of these phenomena on citizen engagement and social inclusion?
• What is the impact of the new social networking dynamics on innovation and entrepreneurship?

Download the Riport here

Source: Dubai School Of Government

A major potential advantage of cloud computing for companies and public administrations is that they no longer need to install and maintain software and computing equipment of their own, nor manage data storage facilities in-house. Instead, they can enjoy remote access, through networks such as the internet, to state-of-the-art software and data storage systems offered by specialist outside suppliers and so take advantage of much more affordable and efficient IT systems.

Some examples of EU-funded projects in the field of cloud computing include:

RESERVOIR – technology for a European cloud

The RESERVOIR project concerns how a European cloud computing infrastructure could be built. The research project focusses on developing software that would make available underused computing resources from various suppliers and provide them as a service to companies and public administrations in need of such resources. The aim is to enable companies with underused computing resources to make their infrastructure available as a "cloud service". RESERVOIR is building technology for a European "cloud", allowing European companies to easily become a cloud provider using the RESERVOIR software.

RESERVOIR aims to enable the delivery of services on an on-demand basis, at competitive costs, and without requiring a large capital investment in infrastructure. To achieve this, RESERVOIR has developed open source software (called OpenNebula) that can offer widespread cloud services in the EU which can be downloaded for free. Spanish telecoms company Telefónica and the European Organisation for Nuclear Research CERN are already using this open source software to provide cloud services.

The project is carried out by industry, universities, research centres in Belgium, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom . It is funded by the EU’s Seventh Framework Programme with €10.5 million (total project cost of €17.22 million). It started in February 2008 and is expected to finish in March 2011.

More information:

http://www.reservoir-fp7.eu/

OPTIMIS – helping SMEs to benefit from the cloud

The OPTIMIS project is focussed on developing software components of a cloud infrastructure that will help SMEs to deploy, run, monitor and manage applications on the cloud. According to market studies, the market for this type of software which generated around €92 million in 2010 is expected to more than triple by 2013. Most cloud innovation is happening in this field.

The OPTIMIS toolkit aims to provide a set of independent components that can be adopted by providers, offering the capacity required by services. These components address the whole product life cycle (e.g. from conception to maintenance).

As companies move from traditional infrastructure to cloud based infrastructure, their existing monitoring and management tools are no longer sufficient. OPTIMIS aims to help SMEs to better innovate using the cloud.

The project is carried out by universities and research centres in Germany, Greece, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. It is funded by the EU Seventh Framework Programme for Research with € 7.1 million (total project cost of €10.37 million). It started in June 2010 and is expected to finish in May 2013.

More information:

http://www.optimis-project.eu/

CONTRAIL – using the cloud to maximise use of computing infrastructure

The Contrail research project is looking into new methods to help any company to be a cloud provider when its computing infrastructure is not used at its maximum capacity, and a cloud customer in periods of peak activity. The projects look at how unused resources can be pooled and made available for other uses.

For example, Contrail is looking at how cloud computing could help cut costs and increase the impact of drugs research.

The massive explosion in the volume of data generated through genomic research, pharmacological sources or clinical trials could potentially offer an opportunity to increase the number of drugs discovered.

However, the sheer amount of data make it hugely challenging to identify promising candidates for potentially life-saving drugs through traditional computing technology alone. The cloud makes it possible to use more computing and data storage power at the same cost to resolve that difficulty.

Accessing and analysing the data through the cloud, perhaps drawing on the unused computing resources of other companies or organisations, could potentially lower the cost of commercial electronic drug discovery services for the pharmaceutical industry. It could also enable SMEs to play a competitive role in a capital intensive industry like pharmaceuticals.

The project is carried out by universities, research centres and SMEs in France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Slovenia and the United Kingdom. It is funded by the EU’s Seventh Framework Programme for Research with €8.3 million (total project cost of €11.3 million). It started in October 2010 and is due to finish in September 2013.

More information:

http://www.contrail-project.eu

To find out more about CeBIT 2011

http://www.cebit.de/home

Digital Agenda website:

http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/digital-agenda/index_en.htm

Neelie Kroes’ website:

http://ec.europa.eu/commission_2010-2014/kroes/index_en.htm

EU legislation is already in place to ensure that people with disabilities are not discriminated against at work. Proposals are also in the pipeline to extend protection against discrimination beyond the workplace.

Despite the fact that their rights are enshrined in both EU and national legislation, many people with disabilities still face difficulties in their everyday lives.

They are on average poorer and more socially excluded than most other Europeans. They are also more likely to be jobless and have to cope with limited access to goods and services such as education, health care, transport, housing and technology.

Catalyst for change

In a bid to change this situation, the Commission has adopted a new European Disability Strategy covering the years 2010 to 2020.

The Commission wants the strategy to act as a catalyst that can empower people with disabilities so that they can enjoy their full rights as citizens. It therefore sets out a range of actions across eight key areas, which are: accessibility; participation; equality; employment; education and training; social protection; health; and external action.

To move forward in these areas, the strategy has established a number of activities for its first five years.

The Commission will consider drafting a European Disability Act in 2012. The aim here will be to improve the accessibility of goods, services and public infrastructure through the development of accessibility standards, and by enhancing the use of public procurement to buy accessible goods and services.

Efforts to improve accessibility in this way should be good for the economy as well as society. The market for assistive devices in the EU is worth about €30 billion a year. Greater standardisation and access to an EU-wide market allows for economies of scale and will help businesses sell their goods and services more easily across national borders.

In addition, public procurement calls that include accessibility requirements could make public infrastructure, such as railway stations and council buildings, more accessible.

The strategy seeks to improve the participation of people with disabilities in the political process. Actions include making election facilities and campaign material more accessible through, for example, an increase in the use of sign language and Braille.

Many EU member states issue disability cards that allow holders access to a range of goods and services. The strategy promises action will be taken to study and promote the possibility of mutual recognition of such cards and related entitlements.

The strategy will also address the need to ensure that EU programmes are used to help people with disabilities.

The European Social Fund and other financing instruments will be expected to continue to support projects for people with disabilities. And the Commission will develop education and training policies to meet the needs of youngsters with disabilities through its new ‘Youth on the Move’ initiative.

Making sure that the European Platform Against Poverty is harnessed to help poor people with disabilities is also high on the agenda.

In a bid to improve employment opportunities for people with disabilities, the strategy lays down a timetable to improve data collection and monitoring and to suggest new courses of action.

The rights of people with disabilities must also be a guiding light in the EU’s external relations activities, particularly through the enlargement process and via the development programmes.

A city recognised for setting an example

The Commission has also established the Access City Award to honour European cities that make changes to their urban environments in order to provide greater opportunities for people with disabilities.

The Spanish city of Ávila became the first winner of this award. The judges were impressed by the way that a medieval city like Ávila has improved access to public buildings, developed accessible tourism facilities and improved job opportunities for people with disabilities.

The award was announced at the “European Day of People with Disabilities Conference”, which took place in Brussels on 2 December 2010.

Delegates explored the experiences of people with disabilities in relation to EU citizenship, studying and working abroad, social security and mobility, and access to leisure and culture.

Source: Europa.eu

The role of information and communications technologies (ICTs) in tackling environmental problems and climate change is analysed extensively, with emphasis on the role of ICTs in enabling more widespread improvements in environmental performance across the economy and in underpinning systemic changes in behaviour.

Recent trends in OECD ICT policies are analysed to see if they are rising to new challenges in the recovery. Priorities are now on getting the economy moving, focusing on ICT skills and employment, broadband diffusion, ICT R&D and venture finance, and a major new emphasis on using ICTs to tackle environmental problems and climate change.

Publication of the OECD Information Technology Outlook alternates every year with the OECD Communications Outlook (latest edition released August 2009).

Key findings and sample data

ICTs, growth and employment during the crisis

Trends in Top 10 ICT firms’ revenues globally, 2000-2008

• Global ICT industry shows 3-4% growth in 2010 and the outlook is for continued growth in 2011. 
• IT services firms are weathering the crisis much better than manufacturing firms. This benefits firms like IBM and Fujitsu that were hardware producers a decade ago, but have today become largely services businesses.
• The world’s ten biggest Internet firms’ revenues increased by 10% during the crisis year 2009.
• Semiconductors are an exception to the rule and remain a leading indicator of ICT sector performance. See chart: Worldwide semiconductor market by region, January 2007-March 2010
• ICT-intensive employment has grown steadily to make up over 20% of total employment in OECD countries. See chart: Share of ICT-intensive occupations in the total economy, intensive users, 1995 and 2009
• ICT-related vacancy rates have recovered and grew month-on-month by early 2010. See chart: Growth in ICT vacancies, December 2001-February 2010
• Cloud computing should strengthen demand for ICT specialists but it is likely to have more impact on value added and growth than on employment.

Globalisation of the ICT sector

Distribution of ICT sector value added in OECD countries

• OECD countries have been increasingly specializing in the provision of ICT services. Around 80% of ICT sector value-added in the OECD is generated by ICT services. This mirrors the shift of ICT manufacturing to Asian economies over the past decade. 
• 50% of global trade in manufactured ICT products takes place outside the OECD countries. Chinese companies such as Huawei and ZTE are growing ever more competitive and innovative in emerging markets. See chart: World trade in ICT goods
• ICT firms outside the OECD are becoming major international investors. In 2009, one-quarter (24%) of international M&A deals in the ICT sector were initiated by firms outside the OECD, e.g. China, India, Russia, Arab countries. See chart: Geographic distribution of cross-border ICT M&A deals, 2009

Digital content

Digital content share in games, music, advertising, film and newspaper sectors

• The global video games industry makes 30% of its USD 50 billion of revenues from “digital content” (downloads, subscriptions, etc.).
• The music industry, with falling revenues overall, is now generating one quarter of its turnover from music downloads, streaming and bundled mobile Internet services. But there is still room to grow: iTunes still only catalogues 11 million songs, compared with 80 million songs catalogued in large industry databases.

ICTs and the environment

Electricity lost during transmission and distribution globally

• Industry and governments are looking in more detail at “net” environmental impacts of using ICTs.
• The smart grid is an area that can make electricity production, consumption and management more sustainable. For example, it can mitigate the amount of electricity worldwide that is lost – around 8% of the total.
• At the same time the sector needs to address related life-cycle issues, e.g. energy use, electronic waste. Smart electricity meters allow better energy conservation by final customers, but also increase the need for servers, data centres and networks, begging the question of “how green is the Internet?”. See chart: Global greenhouse gas emissions by ICT product categories
• Internet use and consumption of “digital content” also contribute to environmental efficiencies. As one quarter of music consumption today is in a digital form, physical carriers become increasingly obsolete – no need to produce them, ship and drive them around, dump or recycle them.

Government ICT policies

Top ICT policy developments for the economic recovery

• In times of crisis, there is focus on ICT policies that contribute to innovation and growth: Broadband and innovation promotion, employment creation and skills development, ICTs for the environment. As economies grow digital, security of information systems and networks is higher on the agenda than ever.  

Source: OECD

In Generations and Their Gadgets, Pew explores how age groups in the U.S. tend to use their tech devices. It defines six generations ranging from age 18 to 75-plus.

A few highlights about how Americans of different ages use mobile devices:

Cell phones

Eighty-five percent of Americans currently own cell phones, making it the single most popular type of tech gadget. Slightly more Americans use their cell phones to take pictures (76%) than to send or receive text messages (72%) — but across all age groups, those two non-voice call activities are the most popular.

Among the 15% of Americans who do not own a cell phone, one-third live in a household with at least one working cell phone. So, overall, "90% of all adults (including 62% of those age 75 and older) live in a household with at least one working cell phone," the survey finds.

Also, Pew notes that as of June, about a quarter of all U.S. households had gone mobile-only, ditching their traditional "landline" phone connections.

This includes more than half of all adults ages 25 to 29, and it indicates how crucial it is to update the U.S. 911 emergency calling system to be more friendly to cell phones, as well as to accommodate more types of communication than voice calls.

Even though more people are getting smartphones (30 percent of U.S. cell phone owners, by most estimates), only Americans ages 18 to 34 are especially likely to use their phones for several purposes: internet access, e-mail, games, getting or playing music, sending or receiving photos, recording video, etc.

The only widely popular activities across all age groups are taking pictures and text messaging, which may explain why 70% of Americans still rely on non-smart "feature phones," which have fewer bells and whistles.

MP3 players

As tech gadgets go, MP3 players are relatively limited devices. So it’s a bit surprising that the youngest and most tech-savvy age group Pew studied is by far the most likely to own an MP3 player.

Three-quarters of Americans ages 18 to 34 own an MP3 player, but only 56% of the next oldest group (35 to 46) do.

Tablets

As of September, 5% of U.S. adults owned tablet computers such as the iPad or Galaxy Tab, up from 3% in May. (Apple’s popular iPad hit U.S. stores in April.)

With the launch of several Android-based iPad competitors, expect this kind of device to become much more popular in the next year. It’ll be interesting to see whether tablet ownership starts to displace some ownership of laptop computers.

E-readers

Currently, 5% of Americans own e-reader devices such as the Kindle or Nook, but this vastly underestimates the total number of people who read e-books.

Many people read e-books on their smartphones, tablets, and desktop or laptop computers. E-reader devices are most popular among Americans ages 47 to 56.

I suspect that in the next year, tablets will shake up all kinds of patterns of mobile device ownership and use in the U.S.

If tablet prices start to drop and more options for size and connectivity emerge (especially likely for Android models), it’s possible that that many people who rely primarily on feature phones might choose to invest in a Wi-Fi-enabled tablet (a one-time expense) rather than upgrading to a full smartphone (with higher monthly bills and often unexpected charges).

Source: CNN

Generations and their gadgets

Many devices have become popular across generations, with a majority now owning cell phones, laptops and desktop computers. Younger adults are leading the way in increased mobility, preferring laptops to desktops and using their cell phones for a variety of functions, including internet, email, music, games, and video.

Among the findings:

• Cell phones are by far the most popular device among American adults, especially for adults under the age of 65. Some 85% of adults own cell phones overall. Taking pictures (done by 76% of cell owners) and text messaging (done by 72% of cell owners) are the two non-voice functions that are widely popular among all cell phone users.
• Desktop computers are most popular with adults ages 35-65, with 69% of Gen X, 65% of Younger Boomers and 64% of Older Boomers owning these devices.
• Millennials are the only generation that is more likely to own a laptop computer or netbook than a desktop:  70% own a laptop, compared with 57% who own a desktop.
• While almost half of all adults own an mp3 player like an iPod, this device is by far the most popular with Millennials, the youngest generation—74% of adults ages 18-34 own an mp3 player, compared with 56% of the next oldest generation, Gen X (ages 35-46).
• Game consoles are significantly more popular with adults ages 18-46, with 63% owning these devices.
• 5% of all adults own an e-book reader; they are least popular with adults age 75 and older, with 2% owning this device.
• Tablet computers, such as the iPad, are most popular with American adults age 65 and younger. 4% of all adults own this device.

Additionally, about one in 11 (9%) adults do not own any of the devices we asked about, including 43% of adults age 75 and older.

In terms of generations, Millennials are by far the most likely group not only to own most of the devices we asked about, but also to take advantage of a wider range of functions. For instance, while cell phones have become ubiquitous in American households, most cell phone owners only use two of the main non-voice functions on their phones: taking pictures and text messaging.  Among Millennials, meanwhile, a majority use their phones also for going online, sending email, playing games, listening to music, and recording videos.

However, Gen X is also very similar to Millennials in ownership of certain devices, such as game consoles. Members of Gen X are also more likely than Millennials to own a desktop computer.

e-Book readers and tablet computers so far have not seen significant differences in ownership between generations, although members of the oldest generation (adults age 75 and older) are less likely than younger generations to own these devices.

These findings are based on a survey of 3,001 American adults (ages 18 and older) conducted between August 9 and September 13, 2010. The margin of error is +/- 3 percentage points. Interviews were conducted in English and Spanish, and the survey included 1,000 cell phone interviews. (More information is availabe in the Methodology section.)

In this chart, the dips in tech ownership registered in the September 2010 survey are mostly a result of the fact that Spanish interviews were added to the survey. Most of the Pew Internet surveys before 2010 were only conducted in English. The Project has added Spanish to this survey and that knocked down the overall tech-ownership numbers in some instances because respondents who wanted to be interviewed in Spanish were somewhat less likely than others to be tech non-users.

Source: Pew Internet

Milestones

• 20 Nov. 2009: European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA) issues report on security risks and benefits of cloud computing.
• 26 Jan. 2010: European Commission outlines future directions for cloud computing research in Europe.
• 19 May 2010: Commission’s ‘Digital Agenda for Europe’ suggests developing EU-wide strategy on cloud computing, notably for government and science.
• Dec. 2010: Commission ‘Study on security and privacy regulatory challenges in the Cloud’.
• Dec. 2010: Commission review of economic impact of cloud computing.
• May 2011: Commission to consult stakeholders on regulation for cloud computing.
• 2012: Commission expected to propose EU strategy for cloud computing.

Policy Summary

The term ‘cloud computing’ describes a whole range of infrastructure, software, data or applications residing in the ‘cloud’ – that is to say, off your own premises and accessed via the Internet.

A study carried out by the University of Milan, published in late 2010, estimated that cloud computing has the potential to create 1.5 million new jobs in Europe over the next five years.

The greatest commercial benefit of the cloud is that the services that use it can hone economies of scale by cutting out hardware costs and reducing their costs per unit as demand increases.

For customers, it makes tons of information potentially accessible from any device that is connected to the Internet.

While businesses and governments wax lyrical about the benefits of cloud computing, EU regulators have been more wary, as further take-up of cloud systems would mean a large swathe of public and commercial data would migrate to servers possibly located outside national borders or even on other continents.

Despite the EU’s best efforts, laws to protect and store data are outdated and cannot cope with the legal problems presented by cloud computing, such as determining who owns data which is no longer handled in situ.

When a company processes data in the UK, stores it on a server in Ireland but sends it via France – as it may have a subsidiary there – it is not yet clear which country’s law would prevail in a legal dispute.

Regulators who have recognised this maze of unanswered questions are busy consulting industry and data protection authorities, while industry is busy trying to make its mark on an as yet unformed legal framework.

In November 2010, EU Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes called for cloud-computing providers to build data security into their services and products. And at the 2011 World Economic Forum in Davos, she said the EU was working post-haste to update its data protection rules.

The Commission will consult with industry and data protection authorities this year before releasing its cloud computing strategy in 2012.

Issues

Who is accountable?

Cloud computing comes mainly in three guises:

• Infrastructure (data centres);
• Online platforms (operating systems), and;
• Applications (web-based email, online office applications, file-sharing).

The industry-led trend is being touted as a utility of the future, like gas or electricity. Some applications, such as online office documents developed by Google, even threaten to derail industry giants such as Microsoft’s Office.

But it is a utility that relies and will continue to rely on data stored across borders, forcing businesses and regulators to demand the same laws on data and privacy pretty much everywhere.

Aside from uncertainty over which countries’ laws are applied, the Queen Mary Research Centre in London has identified two other key legal concerns that are making businesses and governments think twice:

• Some cloud providers keep the location of the data secret, putting users off, and;
• Users may not have a direct relationship with the provider who may outsource to one or more other storage or processing providers. This blurs the line between data controller and data handler, begging the question: who owns the data?

In a recent speech, EU Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes explained that every European citizen or company should know two things: that their cloud supplier protects their personal data in line with EU rules and that the governments of all countries hosting servers have adequate data protection and privacy rules.

The Article 29 Working Party, a group of experts from national data protection agencies, argues that the European Union should apply the law of the country in which the service originates, i.e. the data centre’s location.

The cloud provider industry, including the likes of Microsoft, Amazon and SAP, to name a few firms, would like an international agreement either under trade rules or in international fora to harmonise the legal regimes relating to data.

Where to put my data?

Some data protection authorities would prefer to have servers with EU data inside the bloc to make life easier for regulators and lawyers alike.

Within the US government, data that is classified as low risk can move to an offshore centre, while medium and high-risk data stays on American shores.

However, for commercial data that seems an unrealistic ask, as everyone knows that call centres, which process data on servers in India, for example, can’t all migrate to the EU.

In the EU, this will be a decision left to member states. In Germany, for example, local authorities are asked to store data within the country’s borders. These guidelines do not of course affect commercial data.

Rewriting data protection rules

The European Commission admits that its Data Protection Directive is outdated and is currently reading industry responses to a consultation before reviewing the law.

The current directive sets out guidelines for data controllers who process and handle the data. But the EU will need to tweak these definitions, as cloud computing allows the processing and handling of data to be carried out at a far-flung data centre if businesses so wish.

The current Data Protection Directive requires data to either be stored in the European Economic Area (EEA) or in a territory that has equivalent legal privacy laws.

As of September 2009, the Commission decided that Argentina, Australia, Canada, Switzerland, the Faroe Islands, Guernsey, the Isle of Man, Jersey and the United States had adequate protection for privacy.

Money talks

The enthusiasm for cloud computing stems mainly from the huge cost-savings businesses and governments are promised by moving their IT systems to the cloud.

The global cloud computing market is estimated to be worth €40 billion by 2014.

Ireland’s tech-driven economy was told by Microsoft it should rebrand itself as a cloud computing hub to gain 20,000 jobs. Annually, that could bring €9.5 billion in sales by 2014, and provide 8,600 jobs, according to a recent study by the Good Body consultancy.

One of the key economic drivers for the current level of interest in cloud computing is the fact that businesses can scale down their costs as the cloud allows them to “pay as you go”.

Pay per use, in tech terms, means smaller firms can concentrate on paying their operational IT costs alone and get on with getting their services to market. Add to that faster acquisition of the tools needed to get a business going, earlier market entry, higher returns on investment and a carbon clear conscience and it all sounds too good to be true.

The estimated cost savings are not lost on governments either, but the public sector is unsurprisingly more wary of moving its data to the cloud because of its sensitivity. Some countries, like Germany, even have rules against outsourcing public data.

The UK is busy building its G-Cloud, an onshore government-owned cloud infrastructure for public authorities, which is expected to bring about £3.2 billion (€3.76 billion) in savings per year.

As promising as the cloud sounds, the technology is still in an experimental phase, and in the EU, with a lack of regulation and different rules for different countries, take-up is not what it could be.

Security and data privacy

Cloud computing has been described as putting all of your eggs in one basket. But if that basket gets hit, is everything lost? What if everyone’s personal data, bank account details, credit history, criminal records and tax payments moved to the cloud and got lost?

Regulators will need to act quickly as new research shows that clouds are not being upfront about the services they provide.

A study by the Queen Mary experts in London concludes that cloud business contracts sometimes waive responsibility for data storage or delete data if it not used for a while. Such contracts are usually difficult to understand as they sometimes amount to 60-page documents written in dense legalese. Many users, however, want the cloud precisely because they need to store data they no longer use but may well need in the future.

While essential security aspects are addressed by most tools, the cloud is potentially geographically vast and may need more prescriptive rules on data replication and distribution.

Customers are also concerned that they will no longer “own” their data, as they are not the de facto data handler if it is hovering in a cloud somewhere. This could also create difficulties in accessing data or in moving to another supplier.

In a recent survey, customers’ top concern was the security of their data in the cloud, followed by performance, privacy and cost.

The EU’s ePrivacy Directive, which was updated in 2009, created data breach notifications whereby any communications provider or Internet service provider (ISP) must inform individuals about data breaches of their personal information.

Germany, which is recent years has seen a dramatic increase in data breaches, revised its data protection rules to go beyond the EU regulation.

To try and smooth over legal discrepancies, the industry suggests that a worldwide agreement could be found under World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules for online services and software.

Positions

Viviane Reding, who was responsible for the ‘Information Society’ portfolio in the last European Commission, described cloud computing as an important tool for SMEs to generate business: “If SMEs could access computing power over the Web, they would no longer need to buy and maintain technologies or IT applications and services. Such Web-based services are the medicine needed for our credit-squeezed economy.”

EU Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes said: “If we want our digital markets to grow, users need to feel comfortable spending online. If companies are to take advantage of all the potential benefits of ‘cloud computing’, they need to know their business secrets will not be intercepted.”

DigitalEurope, a trade association representing the European information and communications technology industry, said: “The rules governing international transfers of personal data outside Europe are outdated and bureaucratic. They are unfit in the era of cloud computing. They make it complex and burdensome for companies to comply with applicable rules, they are inconsistent with the goal of a Digital Single Market, and they do not lead to a better end result.”

“The law needs to catch up,” said Brad Smith, general counsel at Microsoft. “Cloud computing is a critical part of the future and quite central to all that we’re doing.”

EuroCloud, the pan-European cloud computing business network, said: “Customers are sending us a signal, ‘please make technology as easy as possible’ – rethink the IT model in offering immediate availability, anywhere, anytime, and at a predictable cost. That’s what the cloud represents […] The opportunity is incredibly huge: to imagine, create and build a new worldwide industry.”

Udo Helmbrecht, executive director of the European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA), believes cloud computing is an attractive solution for governments seeking to save money on IT systems. “Since we are in a time of belt-tightening, this new economic model for computing has found fertile ground and is seeing massive global investment.”

“With the development of cloud computing solutions, EU-US collaboration on cross-border data transfer is also essential,” said Luigi Gambardella, executive board chairman at ETNO (European Telecommunications Network Operators Association).

“The evolution in technology represented by cloud computing presents European businesses, governments and individuals with tremendous potential for efficiency gains and cost savings,” said Francisco Mingorance, senior director of government affairs for BSA (Business Software Alliance).

“It is time to step back and view the many ostensibly unrelated dossiers currently on the European agenda through the lens of cloud computing, in order to ensure the right policy environment is put in place to deliver on the promise of the cloud in Europe,” Mingorance continued.

“Given the fluidity of relationships in the supply chain of cloud computing services, it should be clear which data controller can be held accountable by data subjects and which DPA,” read a statement from the European Digital Rights Initiative, an NGO.

There exists an urgent need to clarify existing data protection concepts and definitions such as ‘personal data’, ‘data controller’, ‘data processor’ and ‘consent’, particularly in light of technological developments, such as cloud computing, which do not fit clearly into one definition or another,” said Martin Whitehead, director of GSMA Europe, which represents the European mobile phone industry.

“Gaining and maintaining the trust and confidence of individuals that their information is protected and secured (and assured that it is being used appropriately for the reasons for which it was collected) will be a challenge that must be faced and addressed not only by organisations but also the current legal and regulatory framework,” read a statement from IT security firm Symantec.

Links

European Union

• European Commission: Report on the future of Cloud computing:
• ENISA: Risk Assessment paper
• ENISA: Report on government cloud computing
• European Commission: The Digital Agenda
• European Data Protection Supervisor

Business & Industry

• Cloud Camp
• The Cloud Computing Interoperability Forum
• The Cloud Security Alliance
• VMWare
• Industrial Development Agency: Cloud Computing Industry can create jobs and restore competitiveness
• Microsoft on Cloud computing: http://www.microsoft.eu/Dashboards/CloudComputing.aspx
• Microsoft BizSpark Programmes: Position Paper on the Digital Single Market:
• DigitalEurope
• EuroCloud
• Business Software Alliance: Cloud Computing Guiding Principles
• I-COMP: Initiative for a Competitive Online Marketplace
• IDC Aid to recovery: the economic impact of IT, software, and the Microsoft Ecosystem on the global economy
• Symantec: Paper on Fundamental Right to Protection of Personal Data
• Salesforce.com
• Amazon Web Services
• IBM cloud services
• Dell Cloud Computing
• Cirrus Cloud Computing
• Open Cloud Manifesto

NGOs and Think-Tanks

• Privacy International
• European Digital Rights Initiative: Declaration On Global Privacy Standards

Think tanks & Academia

• University of Milan The Economic Impact of Cloud Computing on Business Creation, Employment and Output in Europe
• Berkeley Above the Clouds: A Berkeley View of Cloud Computing
• Queen Mary, University of London Information Ownership in the Cloud

Source: EurActiv

Thank you very much for having invited me to be with you today, at this event which reconciles two of the great vocations of Cannes: the city of congresses and of artistic creation.

Today music is at the centre of our attention and I would like, as Commissioner responsible for intellectual and artistic property, to reflect with you on the role and future of copyright in Europe.

The impressive number of music professionals gathered here today at MIDEMNet – artists, composers, producers, publishers, agents, collecting societies, distributors – serve to remind us, if need be, of the economic weight of the sector.

Yes, music has a cultural dimension, essential to our European identity and heritage. But its economic and legal aspects are also important.

Copyright is at the heart of these two aspects, because copyright allows an artist to live from his creations. Because creators are also entrepreneurs. Starting a band, composing a song, producing an album, requires an investment in terms of time, money, talent, without any guarantee of ever recouping that investment. How many creators would take such risks if they could not hope to be rewarded for their creativity in case of success?

This question illustrates the importance of copyright for a continent as rich in creativity as ours: it is no accident that intellectual property issues lie at the top of the priorities set by the Commission last autumn, in its action plan aimed at boosting the single market and which we have called the “Single Market Act”.

I would like to recall here the importance of copyright in the face of the challenges for musical creation today (I).

I will also detail some of the initiatives I intend to promote in this area (II).

1. Copyright must continue to play its role, which is to protect and value European creation, taking into account the new challenges and opportunities of the digital world

Creative industries are supported by copyright. They represent more than 4 million jobs in Europe, more than € 900 billion worth of activities, and generate close to € 200 billion in added value (figures for 2008, Commission Joint Research Centre).

Copyright serves the cultural diversity of Europe: 500,000 composers and authors of music; 350,000 performers.

It translates this cultural diversity into economic prosperity for our continent, by protecting one of our most significant comparative advantages: Europeans’ creativity and ability to innovate. Against the backdrop of an economic crisis and of global competition, this is a considerable asset which we must value as best we can. Intellectual property law, an integral part of the single market, is its essential driver. New technological opportunities must be matched by economic opportunities for creators.

My ambition, and that of my colleagues of the European Commission, is to ensure that the great opportunities afforded by the single market can benefit all creators, all artists and with them all citizens.

But let me be crystal clear.

It is neither the role nor the aim of the Commission to dictate the ways in which you should exploit your creations or which economic model you should choose. You, creators, producers, distributors, are best placed to make these choices.

On the other hand, the Commission does have a role to play in ensuring that the European legislative framework allows you to be remunerated for your work, to serve 1, 2 or 27 territories of your choice, and to enforce your rights when they are infringed.

2. Concrete actions which the Commission will propose to meet these goals

I now come to the concrete initiatives which the Commission will launch.

This spring, I will present a European intellectual property strategy. A true driver of innovation and competitiveness, intellectual property – which ranges from patents to copyright, and includes trade marks and geographical indications – deserves a global and ambitious framework.

This strategy will be one of the three main priorities of my mandate as Commissioner for the internal market, together with my agenda on financial regulation and the relaunch of the Single Market.

There is a “blue” thread common to these actions: we want to put financial markets back at the service of the real economy, and not the opposite as was the case in the last 15 years. At the same time, we want to put this real economy back at the service of growth, innovation, human progress and cultural diversity.

This is the soul of the Europe I am talking about. Its “raison d’être”. You are, Ladies and Gentlemen, at the heart of this challenge.

Our intellectual property strategy will cover a number of concrete initiatives on collective management or the fight against piracy. It will also cover the audiovisual sector and the so-called ‘orphan works’.

A. Firstly, collective Management which is a key issue for you!

I mentioned earlier access to music and the remuneration of creators. The modernisation of collective management, and especially the role of authors’ and composers’ societies, is a key project of the Commission. These societies, which operate for the benefit of authors, and normally under their control, must reflect Europe’s cultural diversity. They offer all authors equal access to the market. They should allow the use of a large catalogue of musical works by commercial players – audiovisual media, online download or streaming services.

But despite some progress, collective management remains too complex. Rights are fragmented between authors, publishers, artists, producers. The difficulties in obtaining tailored licences can hinder the development of new online services. Some major online music stores are accessible only in certain countries of the Union. This situation is not satisfactory neither for creators, nor for economic operators or consumers.

The modernisation of collective management is one of the priorities in our forthcoming strategy. It will require a legislative instrument on collective management, which will be proposed in 2011. We will facilitate the move towards more fluid and simpler collective management structures, for the benefit of citizens, creators and innovative services; towards rules of governance ensuring more transparency in the relationship between collecting societies, users and rightholders.

This legal framework will pursue two objectives. On the one hand, to ensure that all authors can rely on their society to deliver internet licences which cover, if they so wish, several or all EU territories. On the other hand, to ensure that innovative online service providers have readily available access to the music repertoire, through services adapted to their needs, for instance via “single shops”.

B. I have mentioned the fight against piracy

Few sectors have to face as many illegal offerings as yours. The “black market” of piracy is an underground economy facing all related risks: it attracts criminal organisations as well and other kinds of abuses.

We are all aware of these dangers and want to fight them.

The Commission has already taken a strong stance in this battle by creating, in April 2009, the European Counterfeiting and Piracy Observatory. The Observatory increases our knowledge of the reality: 250 billion Euros lost in 2007, tens of thousands of jobs!

The Commission will present, in spring, an ambitious action plan against counterfeiting and piracy. This plan will increase the means and structures dedicated to the Observatory. It will allow us to improve the cooperation between supervisory authorities, including third countries; to develop new means of detection or of educating the public, primarily young people.

On this latter point, I follow closely the legislation implemented or foreseen in several countries and which aim to find balanced and innovative responses to the issue of counterfeiting and piracy. I also follow closely the impact of such legislation on the functioning of the internal market and on the development of attractive legal offers. If necessary, drawing on the results of these national policies, I will stand ready to propose in the same way a European framework, as long as it presents a real added value.

C. Third line of action in this Intellectual Property Strategy, the audiovisual sector

Our intellectual property strategy will also cover the online distribution of audiovisual works. We will engage in a consultation in the form of a Green Paper. This Green Paper will ask all questions, without taboo: emergence of new on demand services such as streaming, catch-up TV or limited downloading windows after a broadcast. A key aspect is that this could lead to new services for all EU consumers and new income streams for rightholders.

D. Finally, orphan works

This subject is dear to me. It concerns primarily the print sector: we want to act in order to promote the wealth of cultural heritage in the collections of libraries, and which contain a considerable number of written or printed works the author of which has either disappeared or cannot be found. What we call orphan works.

A large number of these works cannot be exploited because it proves impossible to identify or find the rightholder. It is often technically impossible to obtain the permission to use such works. However, it is clear that these works have historical, educational, economic, value and potential, as the Europeana digital library shows. Europeana already hosts more than 14 million digitised objects. And its full potential is far from achieved.

I will therefore also propose a Directive, a European legislation, putting in place a legal status for orphan works after a diligent search. This Directive will make it possible to licence the use of these works. Europe should keep the leading position in this field and allow everyone of us to access its cultural heritage in the digital world.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

President Zilk,

I was pleased to share these directions with you today and to show you how proactive I want to be in the field of intellectual property as in other fields…

European Copyright Policy is a major subject, but I want to emphasise what is at stake in mastering it. On the one hand, there are very specific issues, linked to fragile equilibriums in cultural matters; social and “people” issues, linked to the idea that creators should make a living from their work and that consumers should have access to a large legal offering of cultural goods.

On the other hand, there are key strategic economic issues, which are linked to our competitiveness and to our capacity to develop a knowledge-based economy.

The Commission will respond to those essential issues with concrete and determined action in the coming months. That’s the meaning of my work as a member of the College of Commissioners, under the authority of President Barroso. Your experience and your expertise, your replies to our consultations, will be essential and will be properly taken into account. I would like to thank all those who already have and who are here today.

Rest assured that the Commission will keep, as a general rule but also in the areas of interest to you, the interests of creators and citizens at the heart of its action.

Source: Europa.eu

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Source: Zunia

A mobiltelefon-előfizetések száma hasonlóképpen a fejlődő országokban emelkedett meredeken, egy év alatt 18,59 százalékkal 3,84 milliárdra nőtt. A fejlett államokban ezzel szemben stagnált ez a szám, mindössze 1,91 százalékos bővülés mutatkozott. Ezekben az országokban összesen 1,43 milliárd mobilhasználót jegyeztek. Az ITU várakozásai szerint 2015-re a világ népességének fele a gyorsabb adatforgalmat lehetővé tévő harmadik generációs, azaz 3G-s telefont használ majd. A 3G-s mobilt használók száma négy év alatt hatszorosára nőtt a kimutatások szerint.

Email

• 107 trillion – The number of emails sent on the Internet in 2010.
• 294 billion – Average number of email messages per day.
• 1.88 billion – The number of email users worldwide.
• 480 million – New email users since the year before.
• 89.1% – The share of emails that were spam.
• 262 billion – The number of spam emails per day (assuming 89% are spam).
• 2.9 billion – The number of email accounts worldwide.
• 25% – Share of email accounts that are corporate.

Websites

• 255 million – The number of websites as of December 2010.
• 21.4 million – Added websites in 2010.

Web servers

• 39.1% – Growth in the number of Apache websites in 2010.
• 15.3% – Growth in the number of IIS websites in 2010.
• 4.1% – Growth in the number of nginx websites in 2010.
• 5.8% – Growth in the number of Google GWS websites in 2010.
• 55.7% – Growth in the number of Lighttpd websites in 2010.

Domain names

88.8 million – .COM domain names at the end of 2010.
13.2 million – .NET domain names at the end of 2010.
8.6 million – .ORG domain names at the end of 2010.
79.2 million – The number of country code top-level domains (e.g. .CN, .UK, .DE, etc.).
202 million – The number of domain names across all top-level domains (October 2010).
7% – The increase in domain names since the year before.

Internet users

• 1.97 billion – Internet users worldwide (June 2010).
• 14% – Increase in Internet users since the previous year.
• 825.1 million – Internet users in Asia.
• 475.1 million – Internet users in Europe.
• 266.2 million – Internet users in North America.
• 204.7 million – Internet users in Latin America / Caribbean.
• 110.9 million – Internet users in Africa.
• 63.2 million – Internet users in the Middle East.
• 21.3 million – Internet users in Oceania / Australia.

Social media

152 million – The number of blogs on the Internet (as tracked by BlogPulse).
25 billion – Number of sent tweets on Twitter in 2010
100 million – New accounts added on Twitter in 2010
175 million – People on Twitter as of September 2010
7.7 million – People following @ladygaga (Lady Gaga, Twitter’s most followed user).
600 million – People on Facebook at the end of 2010.
250 million – New people on Facebook in 2010.
30 billion – Pieces of content (links, notes, photos, etc.) shared on Facebook per month.
70% – Share of Facebook’s user base located outside the United States.
20 million – The number of Facebook apps installed each day.

Web browsers

Videos

• 2 billion – The number of videos watched per day on YouTube.
• 35 – Hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute.
• 186 – The number of online videos the average Internet user watches in a month (USA).
• 84% – Share of Internet users that view videos online (USA).
• 14% – Share of Internet users that have uploaded videos online (USA).
• 2+ billion – The number of videos watched per month on Facebook.
• 20 million – Videos uploaded to Facebook per month.

Images

• 5 billion – Photos hosted by Flickr (September 2010).
• 3000+ – Photos uploaded per minute to Flickr.
• 130 million – At the above rate, the number of photos uploaded per month to Flickr.
• 3+ billion – Photos uploaded per month to Facebook.
• 36 billion – At the current rate, the number of photos uploaded to Facebook per year.

Data sources and notes: Spam percentage from MessageLabs (PDF). Email user numbers and counts from Radicati Group (the number of sent emails was their prediction for 2010, so it’s very much an estimate). Website numbers from Netcraft. Domain name stats from Verisign and Webhosting.info. Internet user numbers and distribution from Internet World Stats. Facebook stats from Facebook and Business Insider. Twitter stats from Twitter (and here), TwitterCounter and TechCrunch. Web browser stats from StatCounter. YouTube video numbers from Google. Facebook video numbers from GigaOM. US online video stats from Comscore and the Pew Research Center. Flickr image numbers from Flickr. Facebook image numbers from this blog.

Source: Royal Pingdom

Bizarrely, Ms Angelilli also suggests that "the providers would be promptly informed about their rights to appeal against the decision". This assumes that there would be no immediate investigation – having been accused of having a website containing images of gross violations of children, the suggestion is a polite notice to the alleged criminal that he may wish to complain.

In the Parliament, MEPs remain divided but the argument that blocking is a "complementary" measure, to be implemented with other measures (such as deletion and prosecution), rather than instead of them, is successful with many parliamentarians. The argument is working, despite the fact that there is no evidence of this being the case in countries that already have blocking.

In the Council, Germany and Romania are fighting hard for blocking to remain optional for Member States. However France and Italy (coincidentally, countries that also have blocking for gambling and intellectual property) are campaigning for obligatory blocking with what one negotiator described as "missionary fervour". Most countries are remaining silent on the issue, meaning that they are passively having blocking imposed on them by the larger countries. The only large country to remain silent is Poland, and this silence will be crucial for the success of mandatory blocking, if it is maintained.

In the Council, the current negotiating text reads as follows: "2. Where the removal of webpages containing or disseminating child pornography is not possible within a reasonable time, Member States shall take the necessary measures, including through non-legislative measures, to ensure that the blocking of access to webpages containing or disseminating child pornography is possible towards the Internet users in their territory. The blocking of access shall be subject to adequate safeguards, in particular to ensure that the blocking, taking into account technical characteristics, is limited to what is necessary, that users are informed of the reasons for the blocking and that content providers, as far as possible, are informed of the possibility of challenging it."

This text raises three interesting points. Firstly, blocking through non-legislative measures has already been described as illegal by the European Commission in the impact assessment it prepared to accompany the proposals. In that text, the Commission assessed extra-judicial blocking as follows: "More problematic may be the compliance with the requirement that the interference in this fundamental right must be "prescribed by law", which implies that a valid legal basis in domestic law must exist" (page 30) before coming to the conclusion that "such measures must indeed be subject to law, or they are illegal" (page 37). The illegality of this approach is quite clear from the European Convention on Human Rights, which states that "the exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary."

The second interesting point refers to the last lines of the draft text. It suggests that a legal obligation is necessary for Member States to take the step of contacting the alleged criminals, accused of publishing pictures of children being abused on the Internet, and politely informing them that their page has been blocked and giving them the opportunity to complain, if they so wish.

The final point is that Member States should do what they consider necessary, which means that, strictly speaking, this text places no obligations on anyone. Its only real purpose is to give Member States an excuse to introduce blocking, even via "self-regulatory" measures that are in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights and the Commission’s own assessment of the legality of the measure.

The civil society in Poland is pushing hard to demand that the government have the courage to take a position. EDRi-member the Panoptykon Foundation, along with representatives of the Kidprotect Foundation, the Modern Poland Foundation, the Foundation for Free and Open Source Software and the Interactive Advertising Bureau Poland appealed to the Prime Minister to ensure that Polish representation to the European Council takes a critical stance on the Child Exploitation Directive.

In their appeal, the groups demanded proper action against the abuse, rather than the childish act of placing its hands before its eyes in the hope that the monsters would disappear. Illegal content must be removed and not hidden by the creation of a censorship infrastructure.

Working document – Roberta Angelilli, Rapporteur – Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on combating the sexual abuse, sexual exploitation of children and child pornography
http://www.edri.org/files/angelilli_wd.pdf

Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on combating the sexual abuse, sexual exploitation of children and child pornography, repealing Framework Decision 2004/68/JHA
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meetdocs/2009_2014/documents/com/com_com…

"Impact assessment": Accompanying document to the Proposal for a Council Framework Decision on combating the sexual abuse, sexual exploitation of children and child pornography, repealing Framework Decision 2004/68/JHA
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:52009SC035…

Commission official explains the Commission’s research (7.09.2010)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpFpoXIdRQc

Cybercriminals thank Commissioner Malmström
http://www.cybercriminalsociety.eu/index.php

We are writing to the Prime Minister: Do not to block the Internet! (only in Polish, 30.11.2010)
http://www.panoptykon.org/content/piszemy-do-premiera-nie-dla-blokowan…

Civil Society Appeal (only in Polish, 29.11.2010)
http://panoptykon.org/sites/default/files/Panoptykon_List%20do%20premi…

Council draft negotiating text (26.11.2010)
http://www.statewatch.org/news/2010/nov/eu-council-sexual-exploitation…

This article is also available in:
Deutsch: Netzsperren – Wichtige Vorentscheidung fällt am 3. Februar 2011

Source:

Those in higher-income households are different from other Americans in their tech ownership and use.

Analysis of several recent surveys conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Projects find that there are key differences between those who live in households making $75,000 or more relative to those in lower-income households.

Some 95% of Americans who live in households earning $75,000 or more a year use the internet at least occasionally, compared with 70% of those living in households earning less than $75,000.

Even among those who use the internet, the well off are more likely than those with less income to use technology. Of those 95% of higher-income internet users:

• 99% use the internet at home, compared with 93% of the internet users in lower brackets.
• 93% of higher-income home internet users have some type of broadband connection versus 85% of the internet users who live in households earning less than $75,000 per year. That translates into 87% of all those in live in those better-off households having broadband at home.
• 95% of higher-income households own some type of cell phone compared with 83% in households with less income.

The differences among income cohorts apply to other technology as well

The relatively well-to-do are also more likely than those in lesser-income households to own a variety of information and communications gear.³

• 79% of those living in households earning $75,000 or more own desktop computers, compared with 55% of those living in less well-off homes.
• 79% of those living in higher-income households own laptops, compared with 47% of those living in less well-off homes.
• 70% of those living in higher-income households own iPods or other MP3 players, compared with 42% of those living in less well-off homes.
• 54% of those living in higher-income households own game consoles, compared with 41% of those living in less well-off homes.
• 12% of those living in higher-income households own e-book readers such as Kindles, compared with 3% of those living in less well-off homes.
• 9% of those living in higher-income households own tablet computers such as iPads, compared with 3% of those living in less well-off homes.

Source: Pew Internet Project