ICT4Peace’s Daniel Stauffacher was invited on 12 September 2107 by the International Association of Public Prosecutors 22nd Annual Meeting in Beijing to address senior most public prosecutors of over 170 countries on Peace and Security in Cyberspace.
In his presentation Daniel Stauffacher first highlighted the positive effects that the internet and information and communication technologies including social media have brought to humanity including economic and human development. In particular he described the role that Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) can play for peaceful purposes and highlighted the work that the ICT4Peace has done in this field since 2004.
He then warned, however, that the open, free, safe and secure cyberspace, as it was build as a common good over the last two decades is increasingly being challenged by state and non-state actors for criminal, terrorist and strategic purposes.
Besides the Cybercrime Convention he applauded the efforts being undertaken by Governments, International Organisations, Private sector and civil society and academia to develop norms of responsible behaviour and confidence building measures for the cyberspace supported by capacity building efforts (including processes by the UN GGE, OSCE, ASEAN, SCO, AU etc.)
Finally he introduced the Techagainstterrorism.org project jointly launched by the United Nations Counter Terrorism Executive Directorate and the ICT4Peace Foundation, whose objective is to prevent the use of ICTs for terrorist purposes. Tech against Terrorism recently helped organise the U.S. launch of the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT).