Seoul Cyber Conference speech
Francis Maude delivered closing remarks at the Seoul Cyber Conference.
Thank you Foreign Minister Yun.
It is my honour to congratulate and thank our gracious Korean colleagues and friends for hosting such a spectacular conference.
Foreign Minister, you and your team have demonstrated formidable convening power, sharp policy insights, attention to detail and expert organisation.
I would like to pay particular thanks to those who have worked so tirelessly during the past year in the Preparatory Secretariat, under the guidance and motivation of Ambassador Choi and Director Rim.
Your conference has brought more countries than ever before into the debate on the future of cyberspace. Some 90 countries have been represented here today. Not only government ministers like myself but also representatives of industry and civil society. As speaker after speaker has stressed, we all have a stake in this issue. It can’t be left for governments alone to tackle. It’s far too important for that.
If one theme above all has emerged from our discussions over the last 2 days it is the importance of co-operation – between countries but also between sectors – between government and industry and civil society, who all have their roles to play. Thanks to Budapest last year, and now to Seoul, commitment to that co-operation has firmly taken root.
I am delighted that this commitment and the progress we have made here in Seoul has been captured in a framework document. I believe the Seoul Framework is a great set of principles which we can all support.
It demonstrates that real progress is being made in building international consensus on how we tackle the risks in cyberspace, but without undermining the open, growth-driving internet that we are trying to protect. And this degree of consensus is all thanks to our Korean hosts’ wide consultation and advanced preparation of this document.
As we leave here later today it’s vital that we keep the momentum going. So as the UK’s contribution to taking this forward I am pleased to introduce our own “Next Steps” document, which will shortly be posted on the conference website. This aims to capture and summarise the activities taking place over the coming months to continue to take forward the 6 London Agenda themes.
The Next Steps document will also be posted on GOV.UK. This is the British government’s single domain for its web presence, launched a year ago today, replacing many hundreds of websites to make much better information available to the public at a fraction of the cost of the predecessor arrangements. Now we are well down the path of putting the government’s transactional services online, as part of our digital by default strategy.
So - cyberspace, digital government: all this enables citizens to interact more directly with each other, and with their governments. And transparency is becoming the hallmark of the age; an idea whose time has come. On that note I should like to highlight to you the forthcoming Open Government Partnership Summit that I shall be hosting in London.
At the end of this month representatives from 60 countries will gather to exchange success stories, measure performance objectives against previous commitments and set ambitious new objectives for greater openness.
I look forward to welcoming as many of you as possible to that summit.
And so, Foreign Minister, it only remains for me to once again to thank you, our delightful Korean hosts, for organising and delivering such a highly successful and productive third international conference on cyberspace.
And now, as we look forward to the future, I should like to introduce my distinguished colleague, former Foreign Minister to The Netherlands and Special Envoy Uri Rosenthal.