Officials from the United States and German governments held the fourth annual Cyber Bilateral Meeting in Washington on Tuesday and Wednesday, the U.S. State Department said Thursday.
Officials from departments and ministries of both countries met to discuss bilateral cooperation on various cyber issues including international security in cyberspace, norms of state behavior, critical infrastructure protection, cyber defense, combating cyber crime, internet freedom, and internet governance.
“The U.S.-Germany Cyber Bilateral Meeting continued and further expanded its ‘whole-of-government’ approach, allowing for more in-depth cooperation on a wide range of cyber issues and our increased collaboration on both strategic and operational objectives,” the State Department said in a statement.
The last meeting was held in Berlin in June 2014 and focused on collaboration on key cyber issues over the course of the last decade, the State Department said in an earlier statement announcing the meeting on Tuesday.
The U.S. delegation was led by Christopher Painter, State Department coordinator for cyber issues. Other U.S. representatives included personnel from the departments of State, Homeland Security, Justice and Defense. The delegation also included representatives from the Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
The German delegation was headed by Ambassador Thomas Fitschen, the Federal Foreign Office’s director for international cyber policy. He was accompanied by representatives from the Federal Foreign Office, the Federal Ministry of the Interior, the Federal Ministry of Defence, and the Federal Office for Information Security.
The specific collaboration objectives include affirming common approaches to promoting international cyber security, multi-stakeholder internet governance, internet freedom and the promotion of human rights online, partnering with the private sector to protect critical infrastructure, and pursuing cyber capacity building efforts in third countries.
On international cyber security, the State Department highlighted discussions that focused on how international law applies, the promotion of cyber norms of responsible state behavior and the implementation of confidence building measures. Both countries also welcomed the 2015 United Nations Group of Governmental Experts (GGE) consensus report affirming the applicability of international law and outlining norms of responsible state behavior in cyberspace.
The delegations also hailed the second set of confidence building measures agreed in the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) amid discussions of Germany’s cyber priorities during its year-long period as chairman of the OSCE.
Regarding governance, the U.S. and German delegations applauded the outcome document of the 10 year review of the World Summit on the Information Society as the U.N. General Assembly reaffirming the multistakeholder model of internet governance and the continuation of the mandate for the Internet Governance Forum. The parties also agreed to continue efforts to expand the Freedom Online Coalition and expand its reach beyond members to foster global internet freedom.
“Both sides underscore their conviction that the same rights that people have offline must also be protected online. These include the right to seek, receive, and impart information, the freedoms of expression, peaceful assembly and association, and the right to be free from arbitrary or unlawful interference with privacy,” the State Department said.
On protecting critical infrastructure, the delegations agreed to coordinate efforts on cyber capacity building in venues like the Global Forum on Cyber Expertise and to continue working closely to enhance the cybersecurity of critical infrastructure, improve incident management and coordination, and build cyber capacity in other countries.
Additional objectives focused on bilateral cooperation measures like exchanging information on cyber issues of mutual concern; promoting best practices and international standards; and identifying greater cooperation measures on detecting and mitigating cyber incidents, raising awareness, and implementing OSCE confidence-building measures to reduce ICT incident risk.
The U.S. and Germany also discussed diplomatic tools available to address malicious cyber behaviors, current developments in their respective defense ministries and possible NATO-European Union (EU) cooperation on hybrid threats.
Painter and Fitschen agreed to hold the next bilateral meeting in Berlin in 2017.
After the meeting concluded, the delegations held a meeting with private sector, civil society, technical community, think tank and academic stakeholders from both the U.S. and Europe to discuss the meeting’s outcomes and to hear input on planning the second multi-stakeholder U.S.-Germany Cyber Dialogue. That dialogue is set to occur in Washington at a date to be determined in the near future, the State Department said.