Outcome of Fourth Director General Level Meeting of the Japan-U.S. Policy Cooperation Dialogue on the Internet Economy

1.Major achievements of the Fourth Director General-Level Meeting

  At this meeting, reports on specific progress made in the achievements of dialogues held in the third meeting in March 2012 were made. In addition, Koichi Endo, Japan’s first Government Chief Information Officer and Steven VanRoekel, the U.S. Federal Chief Information Officer exchanged opinions for the first time. The outline of major policy issues is as follows.

  (1) Cloud computing service
  Representatives from both U.S. and Japanese industries jointly submitted the “U.S.-Japan Cloud Computing Private Sector Working Group Report,” which sorts out issues related to the promotion of cloud computing, to the governments of the two countries. At the governmental-level dialogue, the two countries made reports on the state of deliberations at the “U.S.-Japan Cloud Computing Working Group,” established at the beginning of 2012, and concurred that the Working Group should continue its discussions.
  (2) Cyber security
  The two countries acknowledged that the MIC and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security started sharing network operation data relevant to cyber security technology development as cooperative research and development on cyber-attacks which was concurred on at the third Director General-level Meeting. It is expected that this data-sharing would deepen the cooperative relationship between the two countries in research fields such as cyber-attack prediction technology and proactive response technology, and contribute to efforts against cyber-attacks rapidly-increasing in recent years.
  In addition, the two countries acknowledged the importance of assuring the security of smartphones and cloud computing services, concurring on the point that they will continue to share information on best practices and updates of current status.
  (3) E-government, open government strategy and open data strategy
  The government Chief Information Officers (CIO) of the two countries exchanged opinions toward the realization of truly efficient e-governments and concurred that they continue to exchange opinions periodically.
  (4) Privacy and other issues
  The two countries concurred that they continue to share information on response to international initiatives for the handling of smartphone user information and privacy.

  (Reference) Participants of the fourth Director General-Level Meeting Japanese delegation: Ichiro Fujisaki, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Japan to the United States, Shun Sakurai, Director General of the Global ICT Strategy Bureau from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC), Koichi Endo, Japan’s Government Chief Information Officer, and officials representing the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, the National Information Security Center ,the Government Chief Information Office of Cabinet Secretariat, etc. U.S. delegation: Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell, Ambassador Philip Verveer, U.S. Federal Chief Information Officer Steven VanRoekel, and officials representing the Department of Commerce, the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Communications Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, etc.
 

2.Future plans

  The next Director General-Level Meeting will be held in 2013 in Tokyo.

  (Reference) Outline of the Japan-U.S. Policy Cooperation Dialogue on the Internet Economy “The Japan-U.S. Policy Cooperation Dialogue on the Internet Economy” is a policy dialogue periodically held concerning the overall policy but focusing on economic aspects of the Internet between the Director-General of the Global ICT Strategy Bureau, MIC, and the Ambassador of U.S. Department of State. *This dialogue was positioned as a part of the “Japan-U.S. Cooperative Initiatives” aiming at an expanded and strengthened Japan-U.S. relationship at the Japan-U.S. Summit Meeting on April 30, 2012.