Not just Microsoft. The Italian cyber agency also sponsors Google
After the alliance with Microsoft, now the Acn (the National Cybersecurity Agency directed by Roberto Baldoni) has given its patronage to a Google initiative for the development of projects for cybersecurity in Italy. Facts, names and insights
After Microsoft, the National Cybersecurity Agency (ACN) sponsors another US technological giant: Google.
On February 27, Google announced an initiative to support the development of cybersecurity projects in Italy.
"With the sponsorship of the National Cybersecurity Agency – I announce the company led by Sundar Pichai – we are happy to announce the Google.org Impact Challenge: Tech for Social Good, an open invitation to non-profit organizations, academic and research institutions , civic bodies and social enterprises of our country, which will be able to receive technical support and pro bono funding for projects focused on the use of technology to solve complex problems and help create a safer digital society".
It is not the first time that the Acn, the national authority that promotes the implementation of common actions aimed at guaranteeing the cyber security and resilience necessary for Italy's digital development led by Roberto Baldoni, has collaborated with an American big tech.
Last month, Microsoft announced a new collaboration with Acn. In particular , the Cyber Agency has entered the Microsoft Government Security Program : through this project, the multinational shares some information with government authorities for the sole purpose of increasing IT security.
The national authority for information security will therefore rely on the American tech giant founded by Bill Gates for digital development even if its director, Roberto Baldoni, has always warned of the importance of technological independence for the country. “The more autonomous one is from a technological point of view, the more information sovereignty policies can be implemented. Unfortunately, Europe is lagging behind the United States and China and this creates a situation of high technological risk” he declared to Baldoni just one year ago , during a lectio magistralis held at the Scuola Imt Alti Studi in Lucca.
All the details.
WHAT IS THE GOOGLE.ORG IMPACT CHALLANGE
Organizations interested in the Google.org Impact Challenge: will be able to send their application by April 7 and, if selected, will be able to receive up to 3 million euros in financial support, says the Mountain View giant.
In addition, they will be able to receive up to six months of pro bono technical assistance through the Google.org Fellowship program. Google.org Fellows—software engineers, product managers, user experience experts, and others at Google—will work hand-in-hand with selected organizations to build projects that are scalable and have lasting impact. The intellectual property resulting from the project elaborated with the support of Google.org will be made public for free thanks to an open source license, specifies the American tech giant.
ACN SPONSORS GOOGLE INITIATIVE
By virtue of the patronage and collaboration with the Cybersecurity Agency (Acn), underlines the Google note, "organizations will have the opportunity to re-enter the technological development support program envisaged by the Acn National Cybersecurity Strategy, in particular on issues such as data security and privacy, the management of cyber threats, the security of software, platforms and digital infrastructures, the related social and governance aspects".
THE GROUP OF EXPERTS (INCLUDING FROM THE INSTITUTIONS) WHICH WILL CONSIDER THE APPLICATIONS
The applications will be examined by Google with the contribution of a group of Italian experts including Nunzia Ciardi, deputy director general of the National Cybersecurity Agency; Alberto Barachini, undersecretary of state to the Presidency of the Council with responsibility for Information and Publishing; Maria Chiara Carrozza, president of the National Research Council, and Nathalie Tocci, director of the Istituto Affari Internazionali.
AFTER WORKING WITH MICROSOFT
So the national information security authority returns to collaborate with the stars and stripes tech giant.
As mentioned at the beginning, on the occasion of the visit to our country by the President of Microsoft, Brad Smith, in a meeting on January 9 with Roberto Baldoni, director general of Acn, the two outlined the objectives for guaranteeing the security of public and private organizations and promote the dissemination of skills in the field of information security. The Acn will take care of qualifying the data and infrastructures of the cloud service providers of the PA from next January 19th .
IS ITALY GIVING UP TECHNOLOGICAL INDEPENDENCE?
Yet the number one of the Baldoni Agency complained: “Instead of developing European technology, we have accentuated our dependence on foreign countries. Well, a change of course is necessary even with regard to digital technologies”. And in an interview with Startmag he explained that “Italy and Europe in the last twenty years have dramatically increased their technological dependence on foreign countries, think, for example, of chips and the cloud where there are no European competitors . The creation of national and European technologies will go through a long and painful journey which will increasingly have to see the affirmation of a European technological industrial policy in a global context and not of national industrial policies of individual Member States in constant competition".
Therefore "the consequence is that the industrial actors of the member states remain relatively small and are then inevitably engulfed by extra-European actors of a monstrous scale" highlighted the director of the ACN to Startmag .
THE ANTI-USA BROADCASTS OF THE MELONI GOVERNMENT
Finally, without forgetting that the Meloni governmenthas also raised fears about the implications of the US Cloud Act in relation to the data hosted in the four data centers of the National Strategic Pole (PSN) for the PA cloud.
So much so that now the executive is focusing on the federated cloud focused on collaboration with qualified in-house companies.
“There will be discontinuity for the National Strategic Pole, we will involve the best regional public in-house companies, SMEs and Universities”, announced the undersecretary of the Prime Minister in charge of Technological Innovation, Alessio Butti in recent days . And in the name of digital sovereignty, the executive is also backtracking on the collaboration with Microsoft, Google and Oracle, underlines L'Economia , the Corriere 's economic insert.
The infrastructure of the National Strategic Center (Psn) will be built by the consortium Tim, Leonardo, Cdp Equity and Sogei, with funds from the Pnrr. When fully operational, 75% of Italian administration data should migrate to the cloud by 2026.
RecentlyButti has often raised concerns about the implications of the US Cloud Act in relation to data hosted in the four data centers of the PSN. The latter may allow US justice or intelligence services to access data hosted outside the United States in some cases. The mega-big names in the cloud (Google, Amazon and Microsoft) are not in fact cut off from the national Strategic Pole.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/non-solo-microsoft-acn-patrocina-lamericana-google/ on Tue, 28 Feb 2023 06:06:09 +0000.