The 3rd Global Standards Symposium, Hammamet, Tunisia, 24 October 2016, brought together thought leaders in the standardization sphere to discuss how standards efforts could best integrate the consideration of security, privacy and trust.
Global Standards Symposiums (GSS) are high-level standardization policy debates that explore the evolving dynamics of information and communication technology (ICT) and associated implications for technical standardization. GSS is held at the outset of ITU's quadrennial World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly (WTSA). Previous editions were held in Johannesburg in 2008, and Dubai in 2012.
The theme of GSS-12 - Standardization at the intersection of the ICT sector with other sectors such as health care, utilities, and transport - proved very timely, and the conclusions of the symposium offered valuable guidance to the ITU standardization work carried out from 2013 to 2016. GSS-12 touched on security, privacy and trust in ICT infrastructure and services when discussing topics such as the wireless transmission of medical data, the storage of data on the movements of connected vehicles, and the collection of consumer data by online retailers. In such environments, standardized frameworks are necessary to provide the assurance that a service possesses trusted security attributes, and that users' security and privacy needs are protected.
The 3rd Global Standards Symposium (GSS-16) discussed how interested stakeholders could work in collaboration to develop international frameworks for security, privacy and trust. The symposium brought together leading experts in the fields of security, privacy and trust, representing governments, regulators, standards bodies and industry. Participants exchanged views on what they perceive to be the key elements of such frameworks, as well as which of these elements should be assigned priority in related ITU standardization work to be undertaken from 2017 to 2020.
Opening remarks were delivered by ITU Secretary-General Houlin Zhao, and the Director of the ITU Telecommunication Standardization Bureau Chaesub Lee. The symposium was chaired by Mongi Marzoug, former Minister of ICT, Tunisia.
The opening session of GSS-16 was followed by three sessions approaching the symposium's theme from the perspectives of regulation and policy, industry, and standardization. Followed by an examination of the theme of GSS-16 in the context of the United Nations (UN) system in Section 2 of this report, Section 3 summarizes the key findings and recommendations of each of the Symposium's sessions.
