There is a Big Difference between Privacy of data & Intelligence sharing of Cyberattacks.
Intelligence sharing was the main focus of the Washington Summit on Cybersecurity and Consumer Protection at Stanford.
President Obama spoke at Stanford University at the Summit on Cybersecurity and Consumer Protection. In a wide-ranging conference, which touched on everything from biometric passwords to the economics of technology, the urgent theme that surfaced was the importance of the public and private sectors working together to crack one of the 21st century’s biggest challenges. The frequency and impact of cybersecurity breaches is increasing most recently, from retail (Target), to entertainment (Sony), to insurance (Anthem).
While the summit was intended to bridge the public and private sectors, the absence of corporate heavyweights was striking. Prior to President Obama’s keynote address, Apple CEO Tim Cook, took the stage. Echoing sentiments he has previously discussed, Cook talked about his desire to protect consumer data not just from hackers, but from any threats to their privacy.
“We have a straightforward business model that’s based on selling the best products and services in the world—not on selling your personal data,” Cook said. “We don’t sell advertisers information from your email content, from your messages, or your web-browsing history. We don’t try to monetize the information you store on your iPhone or in iCloud. When we ask you for data, it’s to provide you with better services—and even then you’re in the driver’s seat about how much information you share, and when you want to stop sharing it.”
HOWEVER, THE LOUDER STATEMENT MAY HAVE COME FROM THE COLLECTIVE SILENCE OF GOOGLE, YAHOO and FACEBOOK.
Through their absence.
Relations between Silicon Valley and the government are frayed due to disagreements over privacy issues. But the solution is not silence or lack of participation.
The ask was not to share all information but to share digital footprints of attacks, risks or incidents so that private and public sector can protect themselves from similar attacks. This by itself should not lead to any privacy issues as there is no company data that has to be shared. And if there are privacy areas that have not been thought through in the executive order those can only be circumvented through a good understanding of Cybersecurity and Privacy. And engaging in the right dialog.
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Pamela Gupta is President of OutSecure, a cyber-security strategy creation firm, tweet her.
Photo source: Oscar Siagan/Monica Schipper/Justin Sullivan/Justin Sullivan/Getty Image
