Unleashing the Potential of Cloud Computing in Europe - Trusted Cloud Europe

European Cloud Partnership Steering Board adopted recently the TRUSTED Cloud Europe framework to support the definition of common cloud best practices, linking them to use cases, and applying them in practice. This paper presents two groups of actions in order to reach this objective: 

• Firstly, a flexible common framework of best practices needs to be created, at the legal, technical and operational level. This common framework, consisting of legal and operational guidelines as well as technical standards, can be voluntarily adopted by cloud providers to show that their offering is in compliance with the common framework, and can be used by buyers of cloud services (in the public or private sector) in order to determine more easily whether a cloud service complies with the requirements of their use case.
• Secondly, systematic consensus building is required, through public consultations, workshops, coordination groups etc., targeting all stakeholders, including citizens, public administrations, the cloud industry and cloud users. This would result in a common understanding on issues such as risk management, security requirements, privacy needs, enforcement methods, procurement practices, and any need for legislative reform, all of which can differ from use case to use case. 

The expected cumulative economic effects of cloud computing between 2010 and 2015 in the five largest European economies alone is around € 763 Bn. 

The cloud economy is growing by more than 20% and could generate nearly € 1 trillion in GDP and 4 million jobs by 2020 in Europe4, with the support of the right policy framework. 

the new EC data protection reform - the right to be forgotten on social networks!

Three quarters of Europeans think that the disclosure of personal data is an increasing part of modern life. At the same time, 72% of Internet users are worried that they give away too much personal data online. They feel they do not have complete control of their data.

The Commission is proposing a strengthened right to be forgotten so that if you no longer want your personal data to be processed, and there is no legitimate reason for an organization to keep it, it must be removed from their system. Data controllers must prove that they need to keep the data rather than you having to prove that collecting your data is not necessary.

What will be the key changes?

• Strengthening the ‘right to be forgotten’ to help people better manage data protection risks online. When individuals no longer want their data to be processed and there are no legitimate grounds for retaining it, the data will be deleted. The rules are about empowering people, not about erasing past events or restricting the freedom of the press.
• Guarantee easy access to your own data.
• Establishing a right for individuals to freely transfer personal data from one service provider to another (data portability).
• Ensuring that individuals must give consent explicitly when it is required for certain types of data processing.
• Increasing the responsibility and accountability of those processing data by introducing data protection officers for companies over 250 employees, and the principles of ‘privacy by default’ and ‘privacy by design’ to ensure that individuals are informed in an easily understandable way about how their data will be processed.

In January 2013 the EC proposed a comprehensive reform of the data protection rules.

The European Parliament last week cemented the strong support previously given at committee level to the European Commission's data protection reform (MEMO/13/923 and MEMO/14/60) by voting in plenary with 621 votes in favour and 10 against.

Only 9 in 100 European app developers are female! Tech is too important to be left to men!

Facts about women in the digital economy:

•  Only 9 in 100 European app developers are female.

•  Only 19% of ICT managers are women (45% women in other service sectors)

•  Only 19% of ICT entrepreneurs are women (54% women in other service sectors) 

•   Less than 30% of the ICT workforce is female

•  Number of female computing graduate is dropping (3% of female graduates compared to 10% of male graduates)

This campaign builds on a Commission study on women in the ICT sector, which found that the best way to get more women into tech jobs is by giving visibility to inspiring tech professionals, thus turning them into role models. Identifying career paths to inspire can also help women already working in technology stay in the sector throughout their career.

European Commission Vice-President @NeelieKroesEU said:

"Tech is too important to be left to men alone! Every week I meet more and more inspiring women in tech. ICT is no longer for the geeky few – it is cool, and it is the future!”

Join the campaign: Check out this collection of video's at ICTLadies.

You can make your own video with your story about life in the digital sector. Share your video to the "Every Girl Digital" Facebook page.

Happy Women Day!!!

Gender Pay Gap: women in Europe still work 59 days "for free"

Women in Europe still work 59 days ‘for free’ – this is what the latest figures released by the European Commission show. The gender pay gap – the average difference between women and men’s hourly earnings across the entire economy – has barely moved in recent years and still stands at around 16% (it stands at 16.4% as the year before).

The gender pay gap is shown as a percentage of men’s earnings and represents the difference between the average gross hourly earnings of male and female employees across the EU economy. The latest figures show an average 16.4% gender pay gap in 2012 across the European Union. They show stagnation after a slight downward trend in recent years, with the figure around 17% or higher in previous years.

Find out more details on the Gender pay gap EC page.

a new Tobacco Products Directive - tobacco must taste as tobacco!!!

The "Tobacco in the EU" info graph shows that 700.000 persons are dying each year due to smoking!

The new Tobacco Products Directive,  replacing  Directive (2001/37/EC), to be applied from May 2015, will lay down rules governing the manufacture, presentation and sale of tobacco and related products. These include cigarettes, roll your own tobacco, pipe tobacco, cigars, cigarillos, smokeless tobacco, electronic cigarettes and herbal products for smoking.

In particular, the new Directive:

• prohibits cigarettes and roll-your-own tobacco with characterising flavours,
• requires the tobacco industry to submit detailed reports to the Member States on the ingredients used in tobacco products, in particular cigarettes and roll-your-own tobacco,
• requires that health warnings appear on packages of tobacco and related products. Combined (picture and text) health warnings must cover 65% of the front and back of cigarette and roll-your-own tobacco packages,
• sets minimum dimensions for warnings and eliminates small packages for certain tobacco products,
• bans all promotional and misleading elements on tobacco products,
• sets out safety and quality requirements for consumer electronic cigarettes

The revision is expected to lead to a 2% drop in consumption of tobacco over a period of 5 years. This is roughly equivalent to 2.4 million fewer smokers in the EU.

Read the FAQ for more details.

Check also the E-cigarettes Myth Buster!