The UK Government’s Investigatory Powers Bill, dubbed ‘Snoopers’ Charter’ by critics, has already been met with contention from tech giants, Google, Facebook and Microsoft, who have stressed they will not voluntarily co-operate with it. And new research published by IP EXPO Europe, Europe’s number one IT event, reveals that nearly three in five (58%) of UK IT departments fear an increase in business costs as a result of it.
Critics have highlighted that rapidly deploying a legislation to ‘spy’ on the general public will cost up to £1.8 billion of taxpayers’ money to implement. But IT professionals face concerns around the business costs of implementing new technology to collect, store and monitor consumer data for up to 12 months, as required by the draft regulation.
Bradly Maule-ffinch, IP EXPO Europe’s director of strategy, says: “Although the Government’s latest bill is designed to address national security concerns, it needs to find a way of mitigating against cyber threats without passing the costs on to businesses and consumers.”
The research also found that over half of UK IT departments (52%) believe the IT security threat level is higher than it was last year, while nearly four in five (78%) respondents believe the Government needs to invest more in national cyber security efforts.
“Security still struggles to be recognised in the IT environment, and this is quite daunting given the prevalence of cyberattacks on companies and governments,” says Catalin Cosoi, Chief Security Strategist at Bitdefender. “The more sophisticated the attacks, the more work companies have to do to prepare and test response plans to mitigate data breaches and ultimately, create a more resilient and agile business. Consequently, higher cyber security threat levels translate into increased security expenses.”
Anthony O’Mara, vice president of sales EMEA, at Malwarebytes, another exhibitor at this year’s IP EXPO Europe, said: “With data being an increasingly valuable commodity, attacks from well-resourced teams developing targeted techniques such as zero day exploits are advancing in sophistication and potency. As a result, the level of risk for organisations of all sizes is growing, further stretching IT teams.
“For this reason, it is important that public and private sectors pull together to oppose the common enemy. This means striking a fine balance between protecting valuable data, whilst also being mindful of cost.”
IT leaders in the East Midlands expressed most concern (70%) around the costs they will face once the regulation has been passed, followed closely by those in the East of England (63%), London (62%) and the South East (62%).
This year’s IP EXPO Europe will feature industry leaders including Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, who will discuss key issues around tackling cyber security and censorship. Other speaker highlights include Mikko Hypponen, Chief Research Officer at F-Secure, Andrzej Kawalec, CTO of enterprise security services at HP, and Phil Zimmerman, co-founder and chief scientist of Silent Circle, to continue driving the debate about the Government’s proposed plans for increasing national security and its potential impact on businesses and consumers. For more information, visit HERE.
About IP EXPO Europe
IP EXPO Europe is Europe’s leading IT event, designed for those looking to find out how the latest IT innovations can drive business growth and competitiveness. Now in its 10th year, the event showcases brand new exclusive content and senior-level insights from across the industry, as well as unveiling the latest developments in IT. It covers everything you need to run a successful enterprise or organisation.
IP EXPO Europe 2015 now features three new themes – Data Analytics Europe, DevOps Europe and Unified Communications Europe, joining the existing Cloud and Infrastructure, Data Centre and Cyber Security areas – incorporating six events under one roof for the first time ever, and making it the most comprehensive business-enhancing experience for those across IT, industry, finance and facilities roles.
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