​Meeting at the Global Standards Symposium (GSS-16) government ministers, industry executives and the international standardization community recognized that the success of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in driving sustainable development will be conditional to achieve ICT security, privacy and trust.

GSS-16 addressed the theme of 'Security, Privacy and Trust in Standardization' from the perspectives of policy, regulation, business and standardization. The symposium's discussions feed into the World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly 2016 (WTSA-16) opening today in Hammamet, Tunisia.

A synopsis of the symposium's key points of discussion can be found in the event's final report.

The symposium encouraged policymakers and regulators to promote adherence to privacy-by-design principles, privacy impact assessment and the development of privacy-enhancing technologies. The sharing of cyber threat intelligence among government agencies and private-sector players was highlighted as especially valuable in increasing cybersecurity capabilities, a view expressed in volumes by private-sector security professionals throughout the discussions of GSS-16.

"Information and communication technologies are central to visions of our future as a society, and here we see the importance of the theme of this 3rd Global Standards Symposium," said ITU Secretary-General Houlin Zhao. "A trusted digital environment will give users, business and government the confidence to use new technologies to their full potential."

"Our increasing capabilities in data collection and analysis have opened up new frontiers in sustainable development," said Chaesub Lee, Director of the ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector. "Standardization should support the emergence of a shared, integrated data ecosystem, helping us to use data-driven insight to tackle the greatest challenges of the 21st century."       

GSS-16 stressed that transparency and technological integrity are essential to industry players' efforts to protect and gain the trust of consumers. Quantum computing is a potential threat on the horizon that security professionals generally agree will render conventional encryption methods inadequate, and several speakers at the symposium urged participants to prioritize the development of quantum-safe technologies. 

The standardization community was encouraged to adopt a privacy-by-design mindset, paying due regard to privacy considerations throughout the standardization process. The symposium highlighted the value of open-source software in addressing challenges to security, privacy and trust, and encouraged sustained effort to enable the exchange of work between open-source and standardization communities to ensure high-quality, high-security software implementations. 

The discussions of the symposium will assist ITU in fulfilling its mandate to 'build confidence and security in the use of ICTs', particularly in supporting the development of the trusted ICT environment necessary to fulfil the enormous potential of IMT-2020 (5G) systems, the Internet of Things and Smart Sustainable Cities.