New York, January 27, 2014 – The Internet, along with related information and communications technologies (ICTs), now forms a fundamental supporting infrastructure for the global economy. Recent developments have focused attention squarely on issues of online privacy, trust, security and freedom on a global scale. New policies resulting from this scrutiny could dramatically reshape the online experience for users, including business, and undermine the potential of the Internet and ICTs to serve as engines for jobs creation and growth.

This is the backdrop for an upcoming conference organized by the United States Council for International Business (USCIB), “Growth, Jobs and Prosperity in the Digital Age: OECD Shapes the Policy Environment,” which promises to address some of today’s most important Internet policy questions for an audience of global business leaders and policy makers. The conference, which takes place March 10 at the Microsoft Innovation & Policy Center  in Washington, D.C., is being presented by the United States Council Foundation, USCIB’s educational arm, along with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and BIAC, the Business and Industry Advisory Committee to the OECD.

“It is important for both business and government to recognize the important and unique role that the OECD has played in the development of the Internet as a source of economic growth and societal benefit,” said Joseph Alhadeff vice president and chief privacy officer with Oracle Corp., who serves as chair of BIAC’s Committee on Information, Communications and Computer Policy and vice chair of USCIB’s ICT Policy Committee.

“From the Ottawa Ministerial in 1998, where the OECD helped facilitate e-commerce, to the Seoul Ministerial in 2008, which addressed the role of the Internet in spurring innovation and economic growth, to its current work on privacy, security, cloud and big data, the OECD has played an important role at the intersection of policy, technology, economy and innovation,” Alhadeff said. “This program will help draw attention to this essential work.”

The conference will feature top experts from the OECD’s Committee on Information, Communications and Computer Policy division along with senior U.S. and foreign government officials, plus experts from business and civil society. Key confirmed speakers include H.E. Diego Molano Vega, Colombia’s minister of information technologies and communications, and Commissioner Julie Brill of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.

The program will explore cutting-edge issues affecting the ICT sector against a backdrop of rapidly changing technologies and a more complex policy environment. In particular, participants will consider how emerging technologies such as big data, cloud computing and the “Internet of things” create greater efficiencies and new business opportunities.

“Some of these new opportunities can be optimized through risk-based approaches to privacy and security developed by the OECD,” said Alhadeff. “We will also examine how the OECD’s Seoul Declaration for the Future of the Internet Economy, the OECD Internet Policy Principles, and other important work products have influenced, and are relevant to, many issues under consideration in current trade policy discussions and negotiations.”

In view of ICT’s importance to all sectors of the economy, the March 10 program will be open to business participants from ICT and ICT-user communities. It will also welcome representatives of the Internet technical community as well as civil society. More information is available at https://uscib.org/growth-jobs-prosperity-in-the-digital-age-ud-4660.

About USCIB:
USCIB promotes open markets, competitiveness and innovation, sustainable development and corporate responsibility, supported by international engagement and regulatory coherence. Its members include U.S.-based global companies and professional services firms from every sector of our economy, with operations in every region of the world. With a unique global network encompassing leading international business organizations, including BIAC, USCIB provides business views to policy makers and regulatory authorities worldwide, and works to facilitate international trade and investment. More at www.uscib.org.

Contact:
Jonathan Huneke, USCIB
+1 212.703.5043, jhuneke@uscib.org

More on USCIB’s Information, Communications and Technology Committee