Connect the dots and it becomes apparent that most of the latest technological developments, including software-defined networking (SDN) and unified cloud IdM, have yet to be standardized and regulated. Inherent to the advancement of such technologies and their security is interoperability among security solutions.

“To support organizational discipline and accountability objectives while enabling innovation and flexibility,” the ITU-T stated in 2010, “the security industry needs to move to a vendor neutral security management and measurement strategy that is agnostic to the specific solution providers while also flexible enough to work with several different solutions simultaneously.”

Building a unified front from within

In the absence of global regulations, and under increased scrutiny following alleged privacy violations perpetrated by the US and the UK, operators and vendors have joined together to craft their own global guidelines. Two such efforts that are moving in collaboration are the Global Network Initiative (GNI) and the Telecommunications Industry Dialogue. Together, the two groups include major players including Orange, AT&T, Telefónica, Telenor, TeliaSonera, Vodafone, Alcatel-Lucent, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Yahoo!, and Nokia Solutions and Networks (NSN) as well as organizations that advocate for human rights and freedom of the press. The principles that guide the Telecommunications Industry Dialogue are available here in multiple languages. The GNI is built upon four key principles, as illustrated in the figure below.

Source: Global Network Initiative, 2013

Global ICT companies based in the US are also actively petitioning for greater transparency. In a letter sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee last month, Apple and AOL joined GNI members Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and Yahoo! in asking the US government to allow them to be more transparent with their customers in order to “counter erroneous reports” of wholesale data collection and participation in the NSA’s surveillance program. The letter stated, “Our companies believe that government surveillance practices should also be reformed to include substantial enhancements to privacy protections and appropriate oversight and accountability mechanisms for those programs.”