October 10, 2023.- On September 26 and 27, the Pacific Alliance, through the Subcommittee on Digital Economy (SCED), held the “Workshop on Business Digital Security and private transactions”, in the framework of the implementation of the Regional Digital Market Roadmap.
Both sessions were attended by national speakers from member countries and experts from international organizations, who addressed highly relevant topics, such as governance models for national authorities in the protection of digital security, cross-border transfers of corporate databases, the design of corporate digital security policies, the use of cloud services, and the use of digital certification, among others.
Peter Stephens, policy advisor at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, presented the OECD’s recommendations on digital security, which mainly seek to promote a culture of risk management within organizations, securing business activities and considering the citizen. He also stressed that all organizations need to be aware of the importance of digital security vulnerabilities and take a strategic approach to assess and address risk on an ongoing basis.
Marushka Chocobar, former Secretary of Government and Digital Transformation of Peru, commented on the governance models for corporate digital security in the region. She also highlighted the protocols that must be applied at national level in the event of cyber-attacks on companies, which, as she explains, can request support from the State if necessary.
Also, Heidy Balanta, data protection expert from Colombia, commented on the regulatory aspects of personal data transfers in PA countries and the challenges faced by Latin American companies when making these transfers. In addition, she pointed out that at the Pacific Alliance level, Colombia, Mexico and Peru have made significant progress; however, it is important that these countries are aligned with the new international standard. In the case of Chile, they will have to work on updating their regulations, which Heidy said will have robust data protection features.
Ariel Nowerszrtern of the Inter-American Development Bank presented an overview of corporate digital security, noting that 73% of Latin American companies ranked cyber risk as one of their top five concerns, only 29% have cyber insurance and 75% have not implemented any type of control. This reflects that, in Latin America, although there is awareness of the risk, few concrete actions are currently being taken to strengthen digital security.
CYBER READINESS IN LATAM COMPANIES
SOURCE: 10. SURVEY OF CYBER RISK PERCEPTION IN LATIN AMERICA 2019. MICROSOFT AND MARSH (2019).
11. GRUPO RADAR AND DATASEC URUGUAY (2021).
On the second day, Henry Pallavicini from Chiletec and Sergio Hernandez from Amazon Web Services participated from a private sector perspective, commenting on the importance of the Pacific Alliance countries to advance in the development of the legal framework to promote digital security and the adoption of international standards and certifications by companies.
Likewise, Pedro Castilla from the National Institute for the Defense of Competition and Protection of Intellectual Property and Julio Mamani from the Ministry of Production, representatives of the Peruvian public sector, presented the use of digital certification for business development and how promoting its use would be beneficial for consumer confidence. It was also highlighted that the strengthening of digital security is important to be part of the state policy, which considers digital security as a relevant element for the proper functioning of companies.
In addition, it was concluded that it is important to deepen the public-private dialogue for the design of digital security strategies that allow companies to be better prepared for the current digital security challenges.
Therefore, we invite you to review the recordings of the 2 sessions of the Workshop, which you will find below:
Day 1: https://youtu.be/KUuGmLnQ-ew
Day 2: https://youtu.be/nOUV_LTX_9E
