A talk with Marco Montironi, a consultant and expert in data protection
We continue our conversation between Annaleda Mazzucato and Marco Montironi, a data protection expert, who will help us understand more about cybersecurity, future developments, and technology that will play a strategic role in these issues.
How does Europe address cybersecurity research and policy compared to elsewhere around the world?
From a technological point of view, Europe has always lagged significantly behind major American companies, and the few other realities that have taken hold on the cybersecurity market are in Asia. It’s very difficult to bridge this gap. The situation is better in terms of research and skills; however, they are not correctly exploited to produce globally competitive European players. One virtuous example is Project Trust aWare, funded by the EU and with the Fondazione Mondo Digitale as a partner, for whom I had the opportunity to test some tool prototypes that have an interesting potential. Europe is a leader in terms of legislation. Recent years have seen the introduction of initial regulations, which will be followed by others, to create a homogeneous legislative package regulating digital technology and data. The important point is that the fundamental principle of this legislation is that any tool or service that is available in Europe, including those managed by non-EU public or private organisations, must guarantee the rights and liberties recognized to all individuals by the EU. Secondly, the security (in the widest sense) of essential services – both digital and not – must be guaranteed. This legislation is ground-breaking. In many countries, including China, similar legislation is being drafted.
The Fondazione Mondo Digitale is currently working on two projects related to cybersecurity: Trust aWare with a European consortium and Ambizione Italia for Cybersecurity with Microsoft.
