Cyber Security, Cultural Securityand the Cyber Gap: Lessons from Middle Eastern Policy Makers Cultural Security: Concepts and Applications

States face ever increasing ethical, legal and rights challenges thrown up by cyber security issues both in terms of national security, the protection of cultural norms and in terms of privacy and commercial activity. These challenges interface with greater demands for online human rights across a broad spectrum from the defence of IP to the protection of identity and the limits of surveillance. There are significant variations in the level and quality of policy frameworks that respond to increasing economic reliance on internet based activity. The link between the effective operation of a national cyber security plan and the promotion and defence of online human rights in terms of national, regional or global human rights norms in what will be an ever more complex and disputed area, requires a platform for training and sharing of best practice. There have been a range of initiatives from the international donor community to engage with individual countries and to set global standards. There has been little specific and sustained focus on the interface between security and rights because different departments tend to focus on these issues. In turn, different states have widely differing conceptions of freedom of expression and cultural norms that should be allowed. This paper builds on a three year multi-country project that has established a network of cyber policy experts across the Middle East. It explores the need to manage the trade-off between public expectations of privacy, cultural difference and the need for state surveillance in cyber space. It presents the preliminary conclusions of a group of policy makers who took part in a multi-stage Fellowship programme. This group pulled back from considering some key issues, accepted profound differences of approach on other issues and devised an agenda of collaboration in spaces that they felt progress could be made on. The paper concludes on the needs to more Fellowship style network policy making and presents a broader theory of change model for developing policy responses to the challenges of cyber-crime.