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'Helping the UK to live and work on-line with confidence' |
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LORD CARTER SPEAKING AT IA09 (London 6 – 7 July 2009) BRITAIN must seize the chance to become the world's foremost digital economy, Lord Carter, Minister for Communications, Technology and Broadcasting told IA09, the UK's biggest ever Information Assurance (IA) event. But it had to tackle some vital issues around infrastructure and digital participation if the country is to reap the benefits. He said businesses and individuals wanted to trade in a secure, transparent and open fashion - and IA had a vital role to play in making that happen. Britain had become a world leader in key international sectors such as financial services and broadcasting by design not by accident – and the same needs to happen with the digital economy. Lord Carter joined a high profile line up of keynote speakers at IA09, addressing 800 senior Information Assurance leaders from across government, industry and academia. The range of speakers also included Sir Gus O'Donnell, Head of the Home Civil Service, Iain Lobban, GCHQ Director, Enrique Salem, President and CEO, Symantec, John Suffolk, HMG Chief Information Officer and Mary Aiston, Director of Governance and Security at HM Revenue & Customs. Building understanding for the GCHQ IA strategy provided a focus for the event. Key strands of this strategy were identified by Iain Lobban in his keynote address:
Iain Lobban, who attended last year's event as a delegate, said of his first year as GCHQ Director: "The most striking difference to what I expected has been the amount of time that I have spent on IA in my role. Week by week IA is at the top or near to the top of my agenda, externally and internally. It is not a passing fad. It is pervasive and long lasting." Commenting on Lord Carter's Digital Britain report, Iain told delegates that we have begun to develop and embed stronger and more ambitious partnerships between government and industry. He also referred to 'the darker side' of the challenges facing IA but pointed out that the new National Cyber Security Strategy (NCSS) recognised those challenges, proposed coherent national structures to tackle them and laid out eight work streams as the basis for the pan-government programme at the heart of the strategy. IA09 was attended by 800 delegates, many of them high-level decision makers, drawn from across central government, wider government, industry and academia. There were 70 speakers representing all aspects of IA and 16 streams offering insights into the latest policies and strategies, from information risk management to cyber terrorism. Symantec was the main sponsor for IA09 and the event was also sponsored by BT, Fujitsu and Thales. There were a range of other sponsors, including Detica and Lockhead Martin, who supported event streams.
GCHQ Press Office: Tel 01242 221491 ext 33847 Notes for Editors: 1. IA09 was hosted by GCHQ at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in London from 6-7 July 2009. 2. IA09 builds on previous annual IA events which gather together the most influential figures in Information Assurance across government. 10 July 2009
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