oneM2M, the global standards initiative for M2M and IoT technologies of which ETSI is a founding member, is thrilled to announce that its standard has been adopted at a national level in India to develop the 100 smart cities plan of the country.
The standard, developed by a joint global collaborative effort, has already been transposed in India by the Telecommunications Standards Development Society, India (TSDSI). The national adoption of the TSDSI transposition of oneM2M standard highlights the importance of collaboration, testing and certification in the development of IoT devices and software and it will also propel India in the global Internet of Things (IoT) market.
“We are pleased to announce the adoption of TSDSI transposition of oneM2M global standards as national standards for the IoT/M2M ecosystem in India. We have completed this adoption process after following an exhaustive process of consultation as well as critical analysis by a Consultative Committee,” said Sh. Udai K. Srivastava, Senior DDG at TEC. “IoT/M2M will play a significant role in the expansion of the digitally connected society and the realisation of the Smart City Mission program in India.”
CEN, CENELEC’s new position paper on the intended revision of the General Product Safety Directive (2001/95/EC)
The European Commission intends to propose by the end of 2020 a new European Consumer Agenda setting out the main consumer policy priorities in the EU for the years to come. The overall aim is to take stock of a number of trends affecting consumer markets and the related challenges. Incidents linked to Covid-19 have further highlighted some of these trends, for example the increasing use of online sales channels and the need to ensure safety for consumers in this context.
One of the main aims of the European Union, through its consumer safety legislation, is to ensure that only safe products are available on the European single market. European standards (EN) have always had a huge role to play in fulfilling this ambition. This important role is highlighted in a recent Position Paper, drafted and published by CEN and CENELEC in response to a stakeholder’s consultation launched by the European Commission on the General Product Safety Directive.
The European Commission published a new Action Plan on Intellectual Property to help companies, especially small and medium-sized companies (SMEs), to make the most of their inventions and creations and ensure they can benefit our economy and society. Intellectual property (IP) is a key driver for economic growth as it helps companies to valorise their intangible assets. The Action Plan aims at enabling the European creative and innovative industry to remain a global leader and at speeding up Europe's green and digital transitions. In particular, the Action Plan sets out key steps to improve the protection of IP; to boost the uptake of IP by SMEs; to facilitate the sharing of IP to increase the technological uptake in the industry; to fight counterfeiting and improve the enforcement of IP rights; and to promote a global level playing field. Action Plan announces measures in five key areas:
- Improving the protection of IP
- Boost the uptake of IP by small and medium-sized companies (SMEs)
- Facilitate the sharing of IP
- Fight counterfeiting and improve enforcement of IP rights
- Promote a global level playing field
Factsheet on the Action Plan on Intellectual Property
Action Plan on Intellectual Property “Making the most of the EU's innovative potential – An intellectual property action plan to support the EU's recovery and resilience”
ETSI Releases Middlebox Security Protocols Framework Specifications
ETSI announced a new specification, ETSI TS 103 523-1: Part 1 of the Middlebox Security Protocol (MSP) series, which defines the security properties of a Middlebox Security Protocol. Middleboxes are vital in modern networks - from new 5G deployments, with ever-faster networks that need performance management, to resisting new cyberattacks with evolved threat defence that copes with encrypted traffic, to VPN provision. Industry needs middlebox technology to keep pace with these and other evolving and diverse use cases. However, middlebox deployments often raise complex and multi-layered questions around the security, privacy and trust of using middleboxes.
MSP Part 1 (ETSI TS 103 523-1) addresses this gap by specifying a new security framework for middlebox protocols, allowing middleboxes to perform vital functions securely whilst keeping up with the rapid pace of technical development. The MSP series is driven by four important principles that are vital for secure MSP deployments to perform their functions. These are:
- Data Protection (DP): protecting data from network attackers and malicious actors.
- Transparency (T): having knowledge of which parties have what access to the data.
- Access Control (AC): allowing endpoints meaningfully to grant access to parties with this knowledge.
- Good Citizen (GC): preventing complexity that adds DDoS attack vectors to the network.
New EU Cybersecurity Strategy & New Rules to Make Physical and Digital Critical Entities More Resilient
The European Commission and the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy are presenting a new EU Cybersecurity Strategy. As a key component of Shaping Europe's Digital Future, the Recovery Plan for Europe and the EU Security Union Strategy, the Strategy will bolster Europe's collective resilience against cyber threats and help to ensure that all citizens and businesses can fully benefit from trustworthy and reliable services and digital tools. Whether it is the connected devices, the electricity grid, or the banks, planes, public administrations and hospitals Europeans use or frequent, they deserve to do so with the assurance that they will be shielded from cyber threats.
The new Cybersecurity Strategy also allows the EU to step up leadership on international norms and standards in cyberspace, and to strengthen cooperation with partners around the world to promote a global, open, stable and secure cyberspace, grounded in the rule of law, human rights, fundamental freedoms and democratic values.
On 14 October 2020, CEN, CENELEC and ETSI, the three official European Standardization Organizations, joined the international standardization community in celebrating World Standards Day. By focusing on the environment, this year’s edition aims to raise awareness on the potential of standards to help tackle the climate crisis.
Standards play a great role in boosting the ecological transition. They can make home appliances, devices and infrastructures more energy-efficient, create ways to reuse and recycle waste, and set incentives to make steel and cement more sustainable. Developing environmentally ambitious standards is also instrumental to achieve some of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This year’s World Standards Day, “Protecting the planet with standards”, celebrates the potential of standards to help our world become more sustainable by setting common rules that help businesses provide better goods and services, while respecting planetary boundaries. It is a moment to showcase particularly successful examples of how standards contribute safe and proactive changes to our world and raise awareness on the importance of standardization to the world economy, but also the environment and consumers worldwide.
ETSI announced the launch of OSM Release NINE . With an array of new features, this Release completes the alignment process with ETSI NFV specifications, culminating in native adoption of ETSI GS NFV-SOL006 for network functions and service modelling. Standardizing the onboarding process for VNFs into OSM fosters interoperability and boosts the growth of OSM’s VNF ecosystem. Release NINE coincides with the announcement of a new production deployment, confirming OSM as the most comprehensive open-source NFV orchestrator and a key enabler for zero-touch end-to-end network and service automation.
OSM Release NINE is the result of almost five years of development and part of the industry’s greater effort towards adopting standards, striving to ensure a healthy and diverse ecosystem of interoperable orchestrators, clouds, and network functions.
The European Commission presented its ‘Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy' together with an Action Plan of 82 initiatives that will guide its work for the next four years. This strategy lays the foundation for how the EU transport system can achieve its green and digital transformation and become more resilient to future crises. As outlined in the European Green Deal, the result will be a 90% cut in emissions by 2050, delivered by a smart, competitive, safe, accessible and affordable transport system.
Milestones for a smart and sustainable future: All transport modes need to become more sustainable, with green alternatives widely available and the right incentives put in place to drive the transition. Concrete milestones will keep the European transport system's journey towards a smart and sustainable future on track:
By 2030:
- at least 30 million zero-emission cars will be in operation on European roads
- 100 European cities will be climate neutral.
- high-speed rail traffic will double across Europe
- scheduled collective travel for journeys under 500 km should be carbon neutral
- automated mobility will be deployed at large scale
- zero-emission marine vessels will be market-ready
AI in Healthcare: Paving the Way with Standardization - CEN and CENELEC’S Stakeholders’ Workshop
In recent years, and in the current quest for digital sovereignty, AI has become one of the top strategic priorities and a key driving force of economic growth. Healthcare is a sector in which this game-changing technology has a particularly high potential to make a huge difference for both health professionals and patients: it allows for faster data analysis and diagnoses, optimises time or outbreak monitoring, and overall provides high-quality care for its citizens. Nevertheless, AI applications must take into account existing European regulatory frameworks, health industry practices, and realworld applications. Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the role such new technologies can play for an effective and efficient health system.
In this context, standards have a strategic role to play: in a quickly developing sector, they can help build trust, promote transparency, and provide a common language. To launch the discussion on this topic, CEN and CENELEC, two of the official European Standardization Organizations (ESOs), organised the digital stakeholders’ workshop “Artificial Intelligence in healthcare: paving the way with standardization”.
The ETSI group on Network Functions Virtualization (ETSI Industry Specification Group NFV) unveiled its first specification enabling containerized VNFs to be managed in an NFV framework. The ETSI GS NFV-IFA 040 specifies requirements for service interfaces and an object model for OS (Operating System) container management and orchestration.
ETSI GS NFV-IFA 040 describes the new functions required for the management and orchestration of OS containers, the Container Infrastructure Service Management (CISM) and the Container Image Registry (CIR). The CISM is responsible for maintaining the containerized workloads and manages the OS container, computation storage, network resources and their configuration. The CIR is responsible for storing and maintaining information of OS container software images.
The GS is supplemented by the first NFV Release 4 specifications ETSI GS NFV-IFA 010 and ETSI GS NFV-IFA 011 which provide enhancements of the specification of management and orchestration functional requirements, and extensions of the VNF package and VNF descriptor specifications respectively.