Trends in Telecommunication Reform 2010-11 Box 3.6: OECD recommendation on ICTs and the environment The key areas for member countries to address in reviewing ICTs and the environment include: • The coordination of ICT, climate, environment and energy policies in order to assess the direct effects of ICTs on the environment and enable ICTs to positively affect other sectors. • Support for research and innovation in green technologies and services, particularly for “smart” applications. • The promotion of green ICT-related education, training and skill development to meet demand for environmental skills and expertise at all levels and in all industries. • Methods to increase public awareness of the role of ICTs in improving environmental performance, which includes the widespread development and adoption of clear standards and eco-labels based on life cycle approaches to pro-duction, use and disposal of ICT goods and ICT-enabled applications. • Approaches by which Governments can lead by example and minimize the environmental impact of ICTs in public administration through green ICT approaches, applications and services. • The setting of transparent policy objectives and targets to measure and improve government green ICT strategies, including ICT-enabled applications across the economy. • Private sector engagement to foster support for e-environmental issues since the private sector will implement many of the green initiatives. Source: OECD, Recommendation of the Council on Information and Communication Technologies and the Environment 3.4.2 ICTs and Cyberthreats breaches cost businesses as much as USD 1 trillion glo-bally due to losses in intellectual property and expendi-tures for repairing the damage from breaches.73 With 3.4.2.1 Growth in ICTs and cyberthreats revenues from cybercrimes exceeding USD 100 billion in 2007, which was more than the worldwide illegal drug trade, the lucrative nature of cybercrime means that cybercrime will only continue to rise without con-certed The expansion of ICTs into every aspect of our lives, including shopping, banking, water and electricity sup-plies, social networking, health care, education, traffic global action.74 management and commerce, leaves us increasingly vulnerable to cybercrime. Cybercrime is often de-scribed as “any activity in which computers or networks Cyber security is important to protecting infrastruc-ture, as well as protecting individuals’ data privacy. are a tool, a target or a place of criminal activity.”70 In order for people to enjoy the many benefits of an inter-connected However, there are both technical and legal challenges to preventing technology-related cybercrime and to minimizing cybercrime’s detrimental impact. Chal-lenges world, they must feel confident in the secu-rity of the networks, services and applications they use. include the growing reliance on ICTs, which Policymakers must therefore seek to protect legitimate activities against four broad categories of cybercrimes: 1) offenses against data privacy and the integrity of computer systems, such as illegal access and data inter-ference; means that even short interruptions in service can re-sult in great financial damages. Additionally, the ubiqui-ty of Internet access increases the number of targets for cybercrime, and makes it easier for offenders to es-cape 2) computer-related offenses, such as cyber identification.75 The sheer volume of information, theft and fraud; 3) digital piracy and copyright viola-tions; and 4) content-related offenses, which may in-clude illicit content, online gambling, libel and cyber users and devices adds to the difficulty of tracking and locating cyber criminals. bullying.71 3.4.2.3 Digital piracy 3.4.2.2 Technology-related offenses In the digital age, copyright violations have soared due to illegal downloading and file sharing, which have particularly affected the music and movie industry. An estimated 95 per cent of all music downloads world-wide The first two types of cybercrimes listed above – data privacy and computer-related offenses – are tech-nology- related offenses most often associated with cy-bercrimes. are illegal76 and revenues from global music sales These offenses include hacking, remotely deleting information through viruses and system inter-ference have declined about 30 per cent between 2004 and 2009, representing billions in lost sales.77 To combat these problems, countries are increasingly considering through computer worms or denial-of-service attacks.72 In 2008 alone, data theft and cyber security Chapter 3 99