Release of United States’ International Cyberspace and Digital Policy Strategy

During the RSA Conference, in San Francisco, California, the U.S. Department of State launched the United States’ International Cyberspace and Digital Policy Strategy: Towards an Innovative, Secure, and Rights-Respecting Digital Future.  Working with other federal agencies, the Department of State developed this strategy to guide international engagement on technology diplomacy and advance the National Security Strategy  and National Cybersecurity Strategy .

The strategy focuses on the concept of digital solidarity, which is a willingness to work together on shared goals, to stand together, to help partners build capacity, and to provide mutual support.  Digital solidarity recognizes that all who use digital technologies in a rights-respecting manner are more secure, resilient, self-determining, and prosperous when we work together to shape the international environment and innovate at the technological edge.  The concept of digital solidarity rests on efforts to build digital and cyber capacity so that partners are not only better able to build a defensible and resilient digital ecosystem over the long term but are also able to respond and recover quickly when incidents happen and to hold criminal and malign actors accountable.  To build broad digital solidarity, the strategy lays out:

Three guiding principles:

1. An affirmative vision for a secure and inclusive cyberspace grounded in international law, including international human rights law;
2. Integration of cybersecurity, sustainable development, and technological innovation; and
3. A comprehensive policy approach that utilizes the appropriate tools of diplomacy and international statecraft across the entire digital ecosystem; and

Four areas of action:

1. Promote, build, and maintain an open, inclusive, secure, and resilient digital ecosystem;
2. Align rights-respecting approaches to digital and data governance with international partners;
3. Advance responsible state behavior in cyberspace, and counter threats to cyberspace and critical infrastructure by building coalitions and engaging partners; and
4. Strengthen and build international partner digital and cyber capacity, including capacity to combat cybercrime.

Repressive regimes and other actors have misused cyber and digital tools to threaten international peace and stability, harm others, exert malign influence, and undermine the exercise of human rights.  An innovative, rights-respecting cyberspace and digital technology strategy is foundational to U.S. strategic, security, economic, and foreign policy interests.

Moving forward, the United States will work with a wide range of partners across the globe to realize and extend digital solidarity.

We will work with allies, partners, and stakeholders to shape the design, development, governance, and use of cyberspace and digital technologies to advance economic prosperity and inclusion; enhance security and combat cybercrime; promote and protect human rights, democracy, and the rule of the law; and address transnational challenges.  We welcome all those who seek to develop and deploy technology that is consistent with those goals.

This strategy sets out a path for the United States to mobilize all resources at its disposal to implement this affirmative and proactive vision through which building digital solidarity connects people and information like never before, fostering a more inclusive, secure, prosperous, rights-respecting, safe, and equitable world.

Building Digital Solidarity: The United States’ International Cyberspace and Digital Policy Strategy