Senator the Hon Stephen Conroy

Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy

DEPUTY LEADER OF THE GOVERNMENT IN THE SENATE

Address to OECD Ministerial Meeting, Seoul, Korea

Future of the Internet Economy

Wednesday, 18 June 2008

I would like to thank our hosts the Korea Communications Commission and the OECD for giving me the opportunity to chair this very important Round Table discussion on Building Confidence.

I often speak about the revolution that is taking place—the revolution in the way we gather and share information, communicate with each other and do business.

For many years people across the globe have spoken of the great possibilities which the internet economy offers.

The possibilities for dramatic increases in productivity, the possibilities for new life-changing applications in health, education and entertainment, the possibilities for better access to government.

We have for so long believed that the major constraints on these possibilities were connectivity and accessibility.

But the connectivity issue is now being rapidly addressed around the world.

And while we still have some distance to travel with regard to accessibility, it too is being progressively addressed.

Yet despite the rapid uptake of the internet and related technologies, the spread of economic activity on the internet is slower than many of us would have hoped or expected.

This is well illustrated in my own country where every second person uses the internet to plan their holidays and yet, only 14 per cent actually book and pay for their trips online.

It seems that a significant barrier to realising the potential of the internet economy is low levels of confidence in the security and privacy of transactions on the internet.

In the sessions yesterday, our colleagues talked about how the internet's evolution will enable an exciting new range of services to become available.

This will drive innovation, new digital content, new means of communication and new business models.

With so much to look forward to, it is vital that the global community manage the risks that come with this integration of the internet into our collective economy.

This includes addressing the physical risks—both natural and man‑made—to critical infrastructure.

It includes addressing the risks to confidence from a lack of consumer protection and fraudulent activities such as identify theft.

And it includes the threat to individuals and organisations from malicious software, as well as the risks to our children and other vulnerable groups.

Finding ways to address these challenges should be the focus of our discussions in this Round Table.

I can illustrate our challenge with an analogy.

Compare the user experience of buying and using a broadband-enabled, internet connected device with that of buying and using a motor vehicle.

This demonstrates the situation confronting us.

In most countries, when someone buys a car, they have been trained and hold a driver's licence, the device—the car—has safety features built in and it almost never breaks down.

The roads are comparatively safe, they are surfaced and supported by bridges, traffic lights and road signs.

The other drivers mostly obey common rules.

Compare this with an internet connected device.

Basically you are on your own!

You have to learn how to use it as you go along, chances are you never know or use all of its features, the device is not always reliable, and its safety features have often been turned off without your knowledge.

You operate on a highway called the internet with almost no rules, and you have to contend with the malicious activities of others who may be criminals or hackers.

To complicate matters still further, the roadway is global so the challenges cannot be solved within each separate economy.

Effective responses to these challenges require cross-border cooperation between the various enforcement authorities that share responsibility for protecting users and consumers online.

The OECD has long recognised this, and can claim substantial success in promoting cross border co-operation in areas such as spam, consumer fraud and privacy.

My challenge to this round table today is that we must find ways to build upon this foundation of international collaboration.

We must work together to create stronger and more effective responses to the security and safety issues that are confronting us all.

There is much we can learn from each other and Australia is keen to learn more from like-minded economies in how we can collaboratively work to prevent child exploitation and abuse on the internet.

We are very serious about building a safer environment for children in the digital world.

We applaud the efforts of countries that are part of the INHOPE network.

Sharing resources and information will help the appropriate organisations in our economies to take the required action to make the internet a safer place for children.

Cyber-security is also an essential part of building confidence in the internet economy, and the protection of home users and small businesses has been a key priority in Australia 's national cyber‑security policy.

In summary, to build an internet economy in which users can participate with confidence, I think we face three clear challenges.

Firstly we must address the unresolved issues of privacy and identity management on the internet.

I endorse the sentiments of Ann Cavoukian, the Information and Privacy Commissioner for the province of Ontario in Canada who wrote that:

“Without better management of digital identities, we will not only continue to struggle with existing problems such as identity theft, spam, malware and cyber-fraud, we will be unable to assure individual users that they can safely migrate their critical data and applications from their own computers onto the web.

The opportunity presented by technological developments will be lost.”

Secondly governments, civil society and industry must collaborate to develop safer, more robust and reliable devices.

As Lawrence Lessig and others have pointed out, we are moving to the point in the world where more and more law will be effectively expressed not in terms of statutes but in the technology itself.

Embedded in what Lessig calls the Code, on a multinational basis and effective across borders in a way unimaginable in the past—effective regulation will be expressed in the technology itself.

Finally we must address fairly and squarely the issues of how we make the internet itself as safe as we can from both physical attacks and cyber-attacks.

Again this will require international co-operation and collaboration.

In concluding, I would like to acknowledge the OECD's achievements to date in cross‑border cooperation.

Much has already been done by the OECD to enhance cross-border cooperation among law enforcement authorities to protect users online.

The OECD has also undertaken collaborative work to protect critical information infrastructure and continues to work with other groups such as APEC-Tel.

I look forward to hearing what you have to say on these important issues and also to working together as we make the internet a more secure place for our citizens, our businesses, and particularly, our children.

I would now like to introduce Professor Michael Geist—who is the moderator of our Panel here today.

Professor Geist is a law professor at the University of Ottawa where he holds the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law.

The Professor is a major thought leader on internet related law and his presence here to day will lend substantial expertise to our discussions.

Over to you Professor…