The US has signed up for the Paris Call for Trust and Security in Cyberspace initiative, launched by French President Emmanuel Macro in late 2018. The non-binding declaration on common principles aims to preserve an open, secure and peaceful cyberspace. The White House said the US support for the declaration shows the administration’s “priority to renew and strengthen America’s engagement with the international community on cyber issues.”
The declaration also seeks to hold accountable countries that engage in destructive, disruptive and destabilizing cyber activity, “supporting the update of NATO cyber policy for the first time in seven years, and the recent counter-ransomware engagement with over 30 countries around the world to accelerate international cooperation to combat cybercrime.”
The principles include agreements to promote human rights on the internet, counter election hacking, stop intellectual property theft through hacking and halt malicious cyber activities in peacetime. Axios noted in 2018 that private sector groups were tasked with having a unique responsibility in security.
The declaration was signed at the time by a number of countries, though not the US, Australia, China, North Korea, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Israel. Non-governmental organisations also signed, as did many large tech firms, including Microsoft, Facebook, Google, IBM and HP, either through private sector pacts or to the agreement directly.
The US also said it would cooperate more with France on space initiatives and that it was committed to joining the Space Climate Observatory (SCO).
