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The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release

FACT SHEET: U.S.-EU Cyber Cooperation

The United States and the European Union work in close coordination on cyber-related issues both bilaterally and in multilateral fora. This cooperation is founded on our shared values, our interest in an open and interoperable Internet, and our commitment to multistakeholder Internet governance, Internet freedom, and protecting human rights in cyberspace. International cyberspace developments are central to our broader foreign and security policy, and are key elements of our strategic partnership.

U.S.-EU Cyber Dialogue

The new high-level U.S.-EU Cyber Dialogue announced at the 2014 U.S.-EU Summit will formalize and broaden our cooperation on cyber issues, building on shared commitments and achievements in key areas.  This strategic dialogue will be the platform for close U.S.-EU coordination on:

  • International cyberspace developments;
  • Promotion and protection of human rights online;
  • International security issues, such as norms of behavior in cyberspace, cyber security confidence building measures, and application of existing international law; and
  • Cybersecurity capacity building in third countries.

U.S.-EU Working Group on Cybersecurity and Cybercrime

Established in the context of the 2010 Lisbon U.S.-EU Summit, this Working Group serves as a framework for U.S.-EU collaboration to enhance cybersecurity and cybercrime activities and contribute to countering global cybersecurity threats.  The Working Group focuses on four areas where cooperative approaches add significant value to both regions: cyber incident management, public-private partnership on critical infrastructure cybersecurity, cybersecurity awareness raising, and cybercrime. Since its creation, the Working Group has successfully conducted a transatlantic cyber exercise, organized information exchanges on national and regional cyber exercises, developed public-private workshops on industrial control systems, and jointly promoted National Cyber Awareness Month in the U.S. and Europe, among other activities.  The Working Group continues to focus on incident management and response, awareness raising, critical infrastructure protection, combatting botnets, promoting the Budapest Convention on Cybercrime, and enhancing the security of domain names and Internet Protocol addresses.

The Working Group played a central role in the December 2012 launch of the Global Alliance against Child Sexual Abuse Online, a coalition of over 50 countries that have come together to actively combat, reduce, and prosecute  child sexual abuse and exploitation online. The U.S. will take over the chairmanship of the Global Alliance in 2014, and plans are underway for a follow on conference later this year.

Information Society Dialogue (ISD)

The ISD ensures the coordination of an on-going working relationship between the USG and EU on important communication and information policy issues.  ISD discussions typically include overarching issues such as internet governance, as well as a specific focus on cross-border data flows/cloud computing, data protection/data privacy, wireless spectrum management, broadband rollout, research and development cooperation, and 3rd-country market access issues.