From "Cyber" Security to Cyber Safety, Security and Disaster Management

Since its conception and first phase, held in Geneva, WSIS was characterized by its specific focus on “society” and the deep involvement of both stakeholders and civil society in the process: a citizens centred approach. It was very evident to both technologists and humanists that such a revolution, likely to change significantly not only life but also society, cannot be managed by companies or governments only. The idea to open the discussion about the impact due to new technologies and their future uses and developments to different actors ranging between governments and civil society it was and still is greatly relevant and extremely positive. Among the other positive effects, the WSIS outlined both threats and opportunities offered by the ICTs counterbalancing the too often abused trend of blind innovation technology trained. Nowadays more than fifth teen years later, if our agenda really includes sustainable development goals, a multi-stakeholder multidisciplinary approach is needed in order to approach and positively solve complex problems, how to foresee the effects on society due to new technologies in 20, 50 years or more. Let us now focus on a specific topic. The action line “C5. Building confidence and security in the use of ICTs”, in charge to ITU, addressed some concrete needs in order to make feasible the implementation of the rest of the services (e.g. Government, Business, etc.). Cyber frauds, viruses, cyber identity and spam were, in 2003 - 2005, some of the main obstacles. Nowadays the demand for "safety & security" in all its forms has increased, especially quantitatively and qualitatively, making clear the need for new approaches to enable the entire sector to ensure better results. It is time to extend the scope from “confidence and security” to a much more general scenario including not only security in a broader sense but even safety, natural and human disasters recovery and management, and more. Safety and security are integral part of human rights; we must provide all the efforts in order to guarantee such rights (as stated in art 3,22, 25 - The Universal Declaration of Human Rights). We must promote the opportunity to share experiences and best practices among countries and foster research thanks to the WSIS.