Building Trust and Confidence in Arabic e-Services
Director of Information and Communication Technology Division at ESCWA Youssef Nusseir said “Transparency and confidence in electronic services are the basic factors that prompt individuals to use technology as an alternative to traditional services.” Nusseir was speaking on 25 May at the opening of a workshop in Beirut entitled “Building Trust and Confidence in Arabic E-Services.” He noted that people are still not giving much attention to transparency, which therefore needs to be strengthened and enhanced in order to maintain the confidentiality of information exchanged.
The workshop, organized by ESCWA between 25 and 27 May at the UN House in Beirut, aimed at raising awareness among member countries on issues related to trust building, securing data, personal data and individual privacy, as well developing national policies to protect the cyberspace and its applications from threats. The workshop also called for sharing best practices among member states.
The 25 participants included representatives from ministries of information and communication from 12 of the 14 ESCWA member countries, a Tunisian expert, specialists from two private-sector companies (Microsoft and Cisco,) in addition to a number of experts and technicians.
The workshop tackled various issues related to national and legal frameworks for building trust in e-Services, best practices in building trust in e-Services, experiences from ESCWA region in building trust in Arabic e-Services and Lebanese experience in e-Banking sector. The workshop also made use of video-teleconferencing technology, with the added benefit of reducing the costs and carbon footprint of the meeting. This technique was highly successful and allowed clear communication between the remote experts and the participants.
The meeting came up with a list of recommendations revolving around the formulation of a national strategy for trust-building and security in using e- services. It also urged training judges and lawyers on the application of cyber legislations and launching awareness campaigns targeting the public sector, employers, individuals, families and children on the protection mechanisms in the digital environment and methods of safe and ethical interaction with the digital environment. Cooperation in the legal field and the use of conventions and international or regional treaties and memoranda of understanding in the field of cyber legislation was also recommended. The workshop finally called for developing local cyber legislations and mainstreaming courses related to information and dealing with technological issues in higher-education curricula in law schools.