At the Munich Security Conference in February, Siemens and eight partners from industry – Airbus, Allianz, Daimler Group, IBM, NXP, SGS and Deutsche Telekom – signed a joint charter for greater cybersecurity. Initiated by Siemens, the Charter of Trust calls for binding rules and standards to build trust in cybersecurity and further advance digitalisation.
The initiative was welcomed by Canadian foreign minister and G7 representative Chrystia Freeland as well as witnessed by Elżbieta Bieńkowska, the EU Commissioner for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and Small and Medium-sized Enterprises.
Siemens President and CEO Joe Kaeser said: “Confidence that the security of data and networked systems is guaranteed is a key element of the digital transformation. That’s why we have to make the digital world more secure and more trustworthy. It’s high time we acted – not just individually but jointly with strong partners who are leaders in their markets. We hope more partners will join us to further strengthen our initiative.”
The Charter covers ten ‘action areas’ in cybersecurity where governments and businesses must both become active. It calls for responsibility for cybersecurity to be assumed at the highest levels of government and business, with the introduction of a dedicated ministry in governments and a chief information security officer at companies. It also calls for companies to establish mandatory, independent third party certification for critical infrastructure and solutions – above all, where dangerous situations can arise, such as with autonomous vehicles or the robots of tomorrow, which will interact directly with humans during production processes. Security and data protection functions are to be pre-configured as a part of technologies, and cybersecurity regulations are to be incorporated into free trade agreements. The Charter’s signatories also call for greater efforts to foster an understanding of cybersecurity through training and continuing education as well as international initiatives.
Chrystia Freeland said: “Secure digital networks are the critical infrastructure underpinning our interconnected world. Canada welcomes the efforts of these key industry players to help create a safer cyberspace. Cybersecurity will certainly be a focus of Canada’s G7 presidency year.”
The Charter of Trust is available at: www.charter-of-trust.com.
