The Government of The Netherlands hosted the fourth Global Conference on Cyberspace (GCCS2015) on 16-17 April 2015. Following on from the London (2011), Budapest (2012), and Seoul (2013) Conferences – a series also known as the London Process – the 2015 event assessed the global situation and mapped out the challenges and opportunities that lay ahead.
The GCCS2015 organisers put particular emphasis on facilitating multistakeholder engagement in the Conference, welcoming almost 300 civil society participants alongside other stakeholder groups. As part of the effort to facilitate effective civil society engagement in GCCS2015, a tailor-made training program for civil society, organised by the GCCS Advisory Board, under the leadership of Tim Maurer and in partnership with the Government of the Netherlands, was delivered through a series of seven webinars open to the public in the run up to the Conference, accompanied by written summaries for each. These webinars were delivered by experts in the field and mirrored the agenda of the main Conference.
Each webinar consisted of a 30-minute presentation, followed by a 30 minute Q&A. The webinar recordings and training materials were then used as the foundation for a 1.5 day civil society Pre-Event to the Conference, which aimed to familiarise a targeted group of participants with the main issues on the Conference agenda as well as the broader cybersecurity debates.
Below, you will find each webinar and its accompanying presentation, with the corresponding topic summary. You can download the full curriculum of collated webinar summaries either as a PDF file using the link at the right-hand side of this page, or you can view the whole document online at the bottom of this page.
Webinar #1 – Human Rights and Cybersecurity
Tim Maurer, New America, Open Technology Institute.
This webinar serves as an introduction to cybersecurity with a particular focus on the policy aspect of cybersecurity, including how cybersecurity is addressed in international relations and the impact it has on human rights. It also gives an introductory overview of the main issues involved as well as of the webinar series as a whole.
Webinar Recording // Introductory Text // Core Readings
Webinar #2 – The Technology Behind the Policy Debate
Niels ten Oever, Article 19
This webinar covers the technical issues and perspectives underlying cybersecurity policies in order to increase civil society actors’ ability to engage in cybersecurity debates, covering items such as hardware and software, vulnerabilities and “zerodays”.
Webinar Recording // Summary // Powerpoint presentation: Systems security
Webinar #3 – Roles and Responsibilities
Myriam Dunn Cavelty, Center for Security Studies, ETH Zurich
This webinar will examine the main actors in cybersecurity debates and their roles and responsibilities, as well as the issues concerning international cooperation on cybersecurity issues
Webinar Recording // Summary // Powerpoint Presentation : Roles and Responsibilities
Webinar #4 – International Peace and Security
Vladimir Radunović, DiploFoundation
This webinar is designed to help build understanding of the issues involved in cybersecurity and international peace and security, the actors in play, and where and when this topic is being discussed.
Webinar Recording // Summary // Powerpoint presentation: International Peace and Security
Webinar #5 – Cybercrime
Tatiana Tropina, Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law
The aim of this webinar is to build awareness among civil society participants about the technical, legal, and organisational challenges related to the problem of cybercrime in a multistakeholder environment, including looking at the various forms of cybercrime.
Webinar Recording // Summary // Powerpoint presentation: Cybercrime
Webinar #6 – Capacity-Building
Taylor Roberts, Global Cybersecurity Capacity Centre, University of Oxford Vladimir Radunović, DiploFoundation
This webinar will provide participants with a fundamental understanding and overview of the landscape of cybersecurity capacity-building, not limited to just technical capacity, but expanded to include policy and strategy, society and culture, education and training, legislation and regulation, as well as standardization and market development.
Webinar Recording // Summary // Powerpoint presentation: Capacity building
Webinar #7 – Privacy
Andrew Puddephatt, Global Partners Digital
The purpose of this webinar is to discuss the meaning of privacy in a cybersecurity and human rights frame, exploring how the notion of privacy and its realization is changed by the internet, technically, commercially and normatively. We will identify the range of factors shaping the way that privacy is being affected online and the roles and responsibilities of different stakeholders in respecting privacy online.
Webinar Recording // Summary // Powerpoint presentation: Privacy