CECUA Report for the year 2015

 

CECUA President’s Message

 

Dear friends and colleagues,

 

The year 2015 was the first year for CECUA operating as a virtual association under the Statutes as revised in 2014.  However, this was more of a formal act. CECUA has been practicing what it has been preaching for many years, running a virtual multinational association replacing time consuming and costly face to face meeting with voice, video or email meetings. And technology is supporting this approach with ever better working-together-tools. I am sure this is the future.

 

Because of limited resources both personal and financial CECUA has been forces to focus on few but important projects; EIF, EURid, BOR, WSIS and now ENISA. ENISA is a new one. CECUA has spoken out and written a lot about security as one of the most important civil society issue ever. And this issue is ever more important now as we move towards Internet of Things or Industry 4.0, where not only computers are at risk but also all home devices from refrigerator to washing machine and factory machines.  Even in the old setting of desktops, laptops, tablets and smartphones the risk of being invaded is on the rise.

 

ENISA (European Network and Information Security Agency) works mostly at the level of European Commission and Member States. However, for one month a year ENISA organizes an ECSM (European Cyber Security Month) at the civil society level. Last year CECUA became an ESCM partner for the first time. This involved people and security related articles on CECUA website as well as elsewhere.  The ENISA CECUA project is led by Dr. Bruno Vogel, CECUA Director Technology who also spoke at the ECSM opening conference in Brussels, see CECUA website www.cecua.eu We expect to continue this co-operation in 2016.

 

Other projects like EIF (European Internet Forum) has been very active. Last year EIF finished revising its statues. EIF has different categories of members and CECUA is an associate member. In the revision process EIF did not make allowance for the fact that there are different categories of associate members. CECUA is in the category of User Associations and in the following Board Election CECUA lost out to the other associate members. This has left EIF with an unbalanced Board with NO Civil Society representative. EIF recognizes this situation and the CECUA EIF representative, Mr. Didier Carré, has been working with EIF to resolve this situation before the next Board Election. In spite of this Mr. Carré has been working very successfully with the EIF at Committee and Working Group level. He is CECUA Vice President Extraordinaire for EIF.

 

The BoR project is led by Mr. Friedrich Dittmer and goes back to the CECUA Conference “The Citizen and the Global Information Society” in Brussels in 1998. The draft Bill of Rights from that same year has been very useful and often quoted in discussions about user rights, a new issue in 1998 and still it is. The draft is now being revised by a working group to take into account developments both technical and social happening since 1998. Mr. Friedrich Dittmer is CECUA Director of Media and Public Relations.

 

The EURid Project has been on CECUA´s agenda from the beginning as CECUA was heavily involved in early discussions and definition of the .eu concept and scope. Today there are close to 5 million .eu users and the number is growing. EURid focuses very much on quality and security, two issues CECUA has long stood for. The EURid project is led by Dr. Jon Thorhallsson, CECUA president.

 

From the beginning CECUA has been accredited to the WSIS (World Summit on Information Society). WSIS is a United Nations organization involving all stakeholders with strong orientation towards civil society while other project like EIF are more oriented towards industries. CECUA´s involvement helps to balance one against the other, Industry and Civil Society. At WSIS CECUA is represented by Mr. Didier Carré.

 

At WSIS CECUA has been cooperating with SEMENTIS, an organization focusing on “Cultural Diversity and Multilingualism on the Internet” and at WSIS Conference in Geneva in May 2015 CECUA participated in a SEMANTIS organized Workshop on “Initiative for Social Innovation & Development for Information Society”.  Also during the WSIS Conference in Geneva CECUA signed a MOU together with several other organizations on “Initiative for Social Innovation and Development in the Information Society”, ISIDIS for short.

 

Those are the 6 projects CECUA is presently focusing on. When CECUA joins a new project it is assigned to a CECUA member who assumes responsibility for it including financing it. He keeps the Board informed as he sees need for. This way CECUA has managed to stay very lean and keep costs down. This has worked very well.  

 

In particular, the EIF project is time and cost consuming as EIF has meetings almost every week in Brussels. We have for some time been looking for a Belgian from Brussels to join CECUA and become an EIF representative. So far we have failed to do so.  But we keep looking. Any suggestions are welcome.

 

Individual CECUA projects are described in Director reports.

 

We have upgraded our website with monthly postings on important civil society issues. Emails about each new posting are sent to all members and all persons listed in the CECUA Database. The upgrade work was spearheaded by Dr. Bruno Vogel CECUA Director Technology.

 

We need to maintain the interest and support of our dedicated colleagues and also recruit new ones.  The revised statutes with new membership categories are an important step in that direction.  If we manage both successfully we will be able to sustain and continue to develop a truly unique organization that CECUA is. The first step was taken by the new Statues and it is showing results.  But we need to do more.

 

CECUA was first registered in Brussels in 1983 under the law of 1919 and 1921. This was before computer records were introduced.  But the record exists although only on paper confirming that CECUA is registered and the registration is active. The present law from 2002 introduced some changes. And CECUA Statues are now being modified according to that new law. This process is in progress and will be completed in 2016. Also the accounting structures are being revised. For both CECUA has engaged the services of Belgian experts, Lawyers and Accountants. 

 

I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincere thanks to the CECUA Board Members, Members and CECUA high level expert Group for their excellent work and continued support. Also I would like to express our gratitude to our partners in EIF, EURid, ENISA, ISIDIS and others.

Any comments or suggestions you may have are welcome as always.

 

 

Prof. Dr. Jon Thorhallsson, CECUA President

jon.thorhallsson@cecua.eu