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Dependability Development Support Initiative
DDSI - IST 2000 29202

Project objectives

The goal of DDSI is to support the development of dependability policies across Europe. The overall aim of this project is to establish networks of interest, and to provide baseline data upon which a wide spectrum of policy-supporting activities can be undertaken both by European institutions and by public and private sector stakeholders across the EU and in partner nations.

Background

The emergence of an Information Society in Europe has led to a growing recognition of the need to ensure an environment in which dependable and trustworthy information infrastructures can be developed. A number of individual member states have initiated activities to build trusted electronic environments and to protect national information infrastructures.

Most governments and businesses now recognise, though, that a number of key policy issues cannot be solved within national boundaries or by informal bilateral relationships. Cyber-crime is perhaps the best publicised of such issues that require trans-national policy responses. The EU has initiated a range of activities, including technological R&D and legislative harmonisation, intended to underpin the transnational Information Society.

However, Europe as a whole lacks:

i) Trans-national, public/private partnership mechanisms by which stakeholders across the EU as a whole can work together to identify and protect critical information infrastructures.
ii) Knowledge bases and internationally benchmarked guidelines and roadmaps that can assist European policy makers in adding value to national policy activities.

Both the eEurope Action Plan and the IST Programme offer opportunities to address these issues head-on. There is a pressing requirement for European action to promote dialogue and policy development on dependability at three levels. First, at supranational levels. It is evident that individual member states cannot by themselves deal with the vulnerabilities and risks posed by increasingly transnational information infrastructures; a co-ordinated multilateral approach is instead required. Second, at trans-sectoral levels. It is evident that the owners and operators of the critical information infrastructures upon which the Information Society relies increasingly represent private sector interests, often with only a limited stake in national jurisdictions. There is therefore a need for public/private collaborative measures to be developed on a European-wide basis. Third, at a global level. The lack of a co-ordinated community of interest across Europe makes it harder for the EU as a body to contribute systematically to international efforts to build dependable global information infrastructures and to engage in dialogue with key external partners such as the USA and Japan.