(2 years, 7 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesQ
Professor Carr: No, to be honest.
Q
Professor Carr: It is impossible to answer that. That is what makes this type of legislation difficult. We do not know how the threats will emerge or change. A couple of years ago we could not have imagined that ransomware would be the threat that it has become, but the fact that we cannot anticipate the future with certainty does not mean that we cannot act now. Nothing will be sufficient to fix the insecurity of the digital world that we live in. No Bill will change that, but small bits of legislation beginning to address these vulnerabilities is the right way to go. I do not think that anyone should be afraid of doing this. This is the beginning of the future. Governments will not stand by forever and watch the damage and destruction that can be done by digital devices. We have to start somewhere, and I think that this is it.
David Rogers: I am coming from a slightly different position, but obviously I would like to see all 13 requirements implemented. I think that it does provide future proofing, because this provides the foundation of future trust for everything. Everything that we have written in there provides future underpinnings. If we are allowing industry-based organisations such as the European Telecommunications Standards Institute to maintain the specification for the future, that allows organisations to improve and add things. I think Dave mentioned biometrics, for example. They can go to ETSI and add to it, and let’s allow industry to develop that. Organisations such as NCSC and DCMS are also there to input into those standard bodies. I think it is a really strong start.
Thanks. I think everyone understood there was going to be a reduction, but I cannot remember those sorts of figures ever being mentioned at the time of the 2017 Bill.
Q
Catherine Colloms: Effectively—let me take a multi-dwelling unit and then I will take a pole—we need to put a new fibre cable over some of these pieces of infrastructure. I actually have my kit behind me, which I can show you in a second. With an MDU, there is often fibre outside a premises; we will build to the curtilage. What we have inside an MDU is the existing cable—the existing hybrid fibre—that is going up inside the risers. You basically cannot see it. It then kind of pops on to a room. We would reinstall the new part of the full-fibre kit in the classic plant room downstairs, so that it is all with the maintenance bits. We then need a new small cable—this one is basically it; it is called InvisiLight—which we would run up through the risers. This is what you would see, or not see, running through corridors or along the wall. When you put this on a wall, you cannot find it because it is absolutely tiny. This cable has all the fibres running through it.
Q
Rocio Concha: Yes, we would support that. If it is not possible to include it in the Bill, we would ask that the Bill allows for it to be included in secondary legislation in the future. We would be very supportive of introducing minimum supporting periods for products.