Workshop 4: Cybercrime and cyber security

As the dependence of societies on the information increases, importance of securing that information increases. At the heart of information security are the private-public partnerships as both – private and public agents - are necessary for effective protection of information and infrastructure: private sector has the experience, knowledge, technologies and the customers, while the public sector has the ability to enforce.

When ensuring security and protection on the web, private sector applies the methods of self-regulation. Although many are cynical about it, success cases exist. Example is the method of pornography websites’ monitoring and blocking in the UK – a system developed that is based on voluntary participation. NGO – Internet Watch Foundation – gathers data on child pornography websites and then distributes it to ISPs. 95% of the ISPs are voluntarily blocking the websites. If judicial approval was necessary to block these websites or images the whole UK judicial system would be needed to work solely on this issue. This of course is impossible, and the current system relying on the cooperation between the NGO and private companies is working – certain principles are commonly developed and if one of the agents believes that those principles are not respected in specific cases it can raise the issue at stake and object – successful operation depends on the cooperation of every single agent involved in the issue.

The above-mentioned example, private-public partnerships rely on self-regulation that can be efficient when all agents involved in the issue cooperate. However, this is not impossible, many success cases exist when agents agree on values and principles related to the issue at stake (i.e. child pornography).