One of the hot topics of this year’s ICT Summit NOW was about “Evolving towards to Digital Society”. In the Panel moderated by Leyla Arsan, CEO of TAGES, the panelists from different stakeholders in ICT sector discussed the digital society in terms of digital citizenship, rights and law, security and privacy on 23 November 2016 in Istanbul Halic Congress Center.
The panelists were Prof. Dr. Gonca Telli Yamamoto, Deputy Dean in Maltepe University, Dr. Murat Apohan, General Manager in Logo Cyber Security and Network Technologies and Sebnem Ahi, Informatics Lawyer in Ahi Law Office.
During the panel, the panelist discussed on the following topics and informed the audiences. The panel discussion started with the following questions:
-
How aware of the e-government applications, personal data security and privacy rights do the citizens?
-
Do we have the adequate infrastructure for them?
-
How ready are we for the cyberattacks?
-
What kind of steps should be taken to be a digital citizen?
Prof. Dr. Gonca Telli Yamamoto took the first word on the digital citizenship. She stated that the first conditions of being a digital citizen were to use digital tools properly and to improve our abilities to get benefit from the digital environment. She addressed that digitalization was one of the integral parts in our lives and we had new concepts such as digitized youth, digitized family and digitized relations but the important thing was that how they effected the society. The government should provide information and trainings with the citizens to make them use the e-government and other digital tools easily. Above all, the government first should define the digitalization goals of the society and accordingly take the actions. In this context, the followings are must to turn a digital citizen in the country:
-
education
-
qualified digital applications
-
strong digital infrastructures
Dr. Murat Apohan joined the discussion from the aspect of cyber security. He first stated that the digital infrastructures were very expensive so Turkey needed to give importance on domestic production and get in to the European Digital Single market for international integration. He addressed that the cyberattacks threatened every sector, every size of companies and the society. Many solutions were being developed to fight with the cyberattacks but unfortunately the steps were taken slowly. At this point, Research and Development (R&D) of cyber security technology was very essential to create fast and right solutions to prevent the cyberattacks. One of the most interesting study on cyber security presented by Mr. Apohan was about a feasibility of side-channel attacks with brain-computer interfaces (2012, Usenix). The study shows that the captured EEG signal could reveal the users’ private information about e.g. bank cards, PIN numbers, area of living, the knowledge of the known persons. This is the first attempt to study the security implications of consumer-grade BCI devices.
The importance of right and laws for personal data privacy and security was highlighted by Informatics Lawyer Sebnem Ahi. She informed that all health information as specified “qualified personal data” by law and secured by Ministry of Health was drawn lately so unfortunately the personal data and the personal privacy rights that should be secured by public institutions in Turkey were at risks. She made aware the audiences of the existence of law “privacy of private life and personal data” in the Constitution of the Republic of Turkey and pointed out the following boundaries of digital privacy:
-
The approval from the data owners should be taken in terms of personal data
-
It is essential that everybody has right to know how and how long their personal data is hidden and for which purposes they will be used
-
According to Turkish Penal Code, saving the information related to political, philosophical or religious views, racial origins, unethical moral tendencies, sex life, health situations or union connections as being personal data is considered a crime.
