On 12 November at the UNESCO Internet Governance Forum (IGF), President Emmanuel Macron launched the Paris Call for Trust and Security in Cyberspace. This high-level declaration in favour of the development of common principles for securing cyberspace has already received the backing of 552 official supporters: 66 States, 139 international and civil society organizations, and 347 entities of the private sector.
Supporters of the Paris Call are therefore committed to working together to:
increase prevention against and resilience to malicious online activity;
protect the accessibility and integrity of the Internet;
cooperate in order to prevent interference in electoral processes;
work together to combat intellectual property violations via the Internet;
prevent the proliferation of malicious online programmes and techniques;
improve the security of digital products and services as well as everybody’s 'cyber hygiene';
clamp down on online mercenary activities and offensive action by non-state actors;
work together to strengthen the relevant international standards.
Microsoft, along with Google and Facebook, joined 50 countries in signing on the call. Notably absent from the signatories were the world’s most aggressive cyber actors: China, Iran, Israel, North Korea, Russia — and the United States. Is Malaysia one of the 50 countries? Or which country in Asia joined the call?
The Paris Call was similar to the call made earlier by Microsoft who proposed a 'Digital Geneva Convention' to govern cyberspace, including a pledge by governments to report vulnerabilities to vendors, rather than keeping them secret to exploit for espionage or attacks. Unfortunately, the call by Microsoft did not pick up pace as the call by the President of France.
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