Claudia Plattner is to become the new president of the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI). Norbert Pohlmann, eco Board Member for IT Security, congratulates.

The directive “for a high common level of cyber security” appeared in the EU Official Journal at the end of December and will enter into force on 16 January 2023. Numerous companies, state-owned enterprises and public authorities will have to comply with new requirements in the area of cyber security. eco Board Member Klaus Landefeld comments.

Head of the eco Complaints Office, Alexandra Koch- Skiba comments on the presentation of the draft Regulation laying down rules to prevent and combat child sexual abuse in the lead Committee on Civil Liberties of the EU Commissioner.

The European Court of Justice today ruled that the German regulations on blanket data retention are not compatible with EU law. The eco Association welcomes this judgement and calls for an urgent repeal of the current regulations.

The European Commission has presented the proposal for the Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) regulation. Prof. Norbert Pohlmann, eco Board Member for IT Security, believes it is understandable that the EU wants to make digital systems even more secure and resilient in the future. However, he does not see an automatic improvement in security in the planned rules.

In the legal dispute between SpaceNet AG and the Federal Republic of Germany, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) will decide on 20 September whether the German regulations on data retention are compatible with EU law. eco has supported the lawsuit of SpaceNet AG from the beginning. According to the Association’s assessment, the general and unconditional storage of traffic data, with around 2.35 billion data records per day (IP addresses and telephony), affects almost all German users and costs the industry more than 600 million Euros.

According to the eco survey, 81.6 per cent of all parents surveyed restrict the circle of recipients when they share photos via messenger services. Only 8.8 per cent use smileys to cover their child’s face.

On 11 May 2022, the EU Commission adopted and published the proposal for a regulation on preventing and combating child abuse content. After a first analysis, eco would like to point out the following points in particular.

More and more services are shifting from the analogue to the digital world. In order for users to be able to use online services with confidence, regardless of whether they are provided by public or private providers, a secure and Europe-wide standardised solution for authentication is needed,

The Digital Ministers of the G7 countries are now meeting in Dusseldorf, with the protection of digital infrastructure and cybersecurity being key focal points due to the Russian war of aggression on Ukraine. In a guidelines paper, eco defines how these topics can be strengthened in a sustainable manner.