Council member Onno Eichelsheim: "The use of technology is necessary to keep our country cyber-resilient"

I am lieutenant general Onno Eichelsheim, acting Chief of Defence.
I'm a member of the Dutch Cyber Security Council CSR.
We have advised on the importance of new technologies...
to make The Netherlands cyber resilient, and for that purpose...
you need to use new technologies...
or older technologies with new applications.
We absolutely need those new technologies to protect the country...
and make it cyber resilient.
However, at the moment the efforts are scattered...
and these are precarious times for cyber security in the Netherlands...
in which nations, organised crime but also 'regular criminals'...
keep on deploying new technologies for their purposes.
So having control and tech knowledge are crucial.
Without that, in the end we will not be able to protect our country.
How important is Dutch cyber resilience for the Council and for me?
Cyber resilience should always closely follow digital developments...
and the use of digital instruments in our society.
During this Covid crisis companies and citizens are relying on digital tools...
but so far cyber resilience and privacy are not secured adequately.
However, we do want to keep on living in an open and prosperous society...
which we also want to protect.
Therefore, the government and companies should collaborate...
also with knowledge institutes. The government should encourage this.
For all of this you need long term planning and long term funding.
The Netherlands can't go it alone. We need to work with European partners.
From my own experience I'm thinking of the European Defence Fund...
in which European partners are developing knowledge.
Something similar should happen in the area of cyber resilience.
Furthermore, the Council is worried about the knowledge levels...
in the Netherlands, because we often use foreign tech companies.
At the end of the year the Council will advise on that as well.
A good example of cyber resilience can be found in the Defence organisation.
When you look at Defence's industry strategy ...
we are always positioning ourselves as a launching customer...
in this case when it comes to cyber tech.
I already mentioned the European Defence Fund...
in which European partners are developing technology.
In our organisation this means we can act as launching customer.
We're not doing that alone, but are collaborating with the private sector...
knowledge institutes and the government itself...
like our collaboration between MARIN, TNO, NLR, and the Ministry of Defence.
All of these were brought together in an artificial intelligence community.
This working group focuses on the use of artificial intelligence...
partly to use artificial intelligence for analysing and using data...
but we are also thinking about using artificial intelligence for cyber resilience.
How does the Council want to use these technologies...
to increase Dutch cyber resilience?
First of all, we obviously should understand those technologies.
We have advised the minister of Justice and Security...
and the state secretary of Economic Affairs...
to create an annual overview of the latest developments in tech.
That way we can monitor what is actually happening.
Secondly, we should create specific policies and adapt our industrial policies.
The government could act as a launching customer.
The third and most important point is there should be a structural approach...
because our opponents, the 'bad guys' are continuously doing this.