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ITU to build united front against technology fakers
High-level talks to address counterfeit and substandard ICT devices
Geneva, 30 September 2014 – ITU will host high-level
talks in a bid to improve global coordination in the application of
information and communication technologies (ICT) as part of strategies to
combat counterfeit and substandard ICT devices.
Discussions on
‘Combating counterfeit and substandard ICT devices’
will be held at ITU Headquarters in Geneva, 17-18 November 2014 to take
stock of the global challenges posed by counterfeit and substandard ICT
products and the role to be taken up by ITU in response. Leading experts
representing industry, governments, regulatory authorities, international
organizations and standards bodies will participate.
A focus of the event will be to examine the role of ICT innovations such
as Big Data, Cloud Computing, Identity Management and the Internet of Things
in tracing counterfeit goods and identifying their origins. A
Call for Contributions open to the public is inviting
input to this discussion until 3 November.
“Consumers rely on brand names and international standards to provide an
assurance of quality, and this assurance is relevant to consumers in
developed and developing countries alike,” said ITU Secretary-General
Hamadoun I. Touré. “Counterfeit and substandard ICT products demand
international action. Such products raise the risk of network disruptions
and interoperability challenges that result in poor quality of service, with
potentially dire consequences in emergency situations. They also pose
major risks to consumers’ health and safety and that of our environment,
especially related to the disposal of e-waste from such products.”
“Counterfeiting is a complex challenge in need of a dynamic response in
the public interest,” said WIPO Director General Francis Gurry. “ITU’s move
to assist the global response to the counterfeiting challenge addressing the
specificities of the ICT sector is a welcome development, to which WIPO is
pleased to contribute.”
Counterfeiting and non-conformance with international standards have
motivated the initiation of a range of counteractive strategies at the
international, regional and national level. By leveraging its public-private
membership base and longstanding experience in the ICT industry, ITU hopes
to bring greater clarity and coordination to the role that ICTs play in
executing these strategies.
ITU’s nascent engagement with counterfeiting comes in response to a new
mandate conferred by its 193 Member States at the
World Telecommunication Development Conference in
Dubai, 30 March to 10 April 2014, which adopted
Resolution 79 on ‘The role of
telecommunications/information and communication technologies in combating
and dealing with counterfeit telecommunication/ICT devices’.
For more information, please contact:
Sanjay Acharya
Chief, Media Relations and Public Information, ITU
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For editors, additional
quotes:
- “Telecom Regulators are looking to protect mobile device
end-users from stolen or cloned handset and non-compliant
devices” says Jeff Edlund, CTO, HP
Enterprise Services - Communications & Media Solutions. “HP
is leveraging its real-time telecom products offering and
working with SGS to provide a solution to track those
devices and deny to them network access.”
- Roger Kamgaing, SGS Société Générale de
Surveillance SA: “As the world’s leading inspection,
verification, testing and certification company, SGS will
participate in the ITU discussion on Combating Counterfeit
and Substandard ICT Devices to share its experience in
ensuring that goods meet the requirements of technical
regulations and standards prior to exportation, as well as
ensuring that all mobile terminals deployed are identified
and managed by the Telecom Regulatory Authority.”
- Yoichi Maeda, CEO of TTC (The
Telecommunication Technology Committee, Japan) and Chairman
of ASTAP/APT: “The accelerating deployment of IoT and M2M
solutions will see an estimated 50 billion network-connected
terminals by 2020, making it essential to safeguard the
quality and reliability of the underlying standards-based
technologies. Battling counterfeit and substandard ICT
devices will be crucial in this effort, and we are paying
considerable attention to this issue in the telecommunity of
the Asian and Pacific region. Discussions at ITU’s event in
November will help ITU to ensure that its services in
conformance and interoperability testing can assist
developing countries in facing up to the challenge of
counterfeit and substandard ICT devices, as it is clear that
this has become a very serious issue in these countries.”
- João Batista de Rezende, President of
ANATEL (Agência Nacional de Telecomunicações, Brazil): “In
the latest years there was a growing importance of ICT
Equipment in people’s daily lives, such as smartphones and
other mobile devices, and as a side effect, the increase of
problems related to the sale, circulation and use
of counterfeit and substandard ICT Equipment in the
marketplace. In this sense, Brazil believes that ITU and
other relevant stakeholders have a key role to play in
fostering collaboration between the parties, through
international dialogue, concerned to find alternative
solutions that help consumer awareness regarding products
that are harmful to the health of all.”
- Isaac Boateng, National
Communications Authority, Ghana, and Vice-Chairman of ITU-T
Study Group 11: “Recognizing the challenges of counterfeit
and substandard ICT devices pose to consumers and networks
in developing countries, Ghana is leading a team of experts
in Questions 8/11 to develop a Technical Report on
‘Counterfeit and Substandard ICT equipment’. The report will
support ITU Member States – particularly developing
countries – in their work to establish standardized
solutions, and policies and regulatory frameworks, to combat
counterfeiting as part of their national
telecommunications/ICT strategies. I hope that November’s
event will set the stage for global recognition of the
problem, giving further support to the work under Question
8/11 and leading to a plan of action for the development of
future ITU-T Recommendation(s) on this ITU hot topic.”
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