MAR 26, 2020 | GLOBAL
BSA Urges Governments to Support IT Infrastructure in COVID-19 Response Efforts
WASHINGTON – March 26, 2020 – BSA | The Software Alliance urges government leaders around the world to prioritize workers essential to enabling and maintaining important IT services and infrastructure in their COVID-19 response efforts. Shelter-in-place orders and related policies should include exclusions to maintain vital, trusted functions performed by information technology and IT infrastructure in order to meet critical needs, foster cybersecurity, and enable remote working.
“Health care providers, first responders, business and government enterprises, and other essential services, including education, rely on IT and IT infrastructure during this crisis,” said Aaron Cooper, Vice President, Global Policy at BSA | The Software Alliance. “Shelter-in-place orders should include exceptions for IT and related services to prevent disruption to essential functions and emergency response, and those exceptions should be consistent across jurisdictions. We urge governments around the world to adopt exceptions, as was done in the guidance from the US Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), in identifying IT and related services as essential during stay-at-home orders.”
Below, please find links to letters BSA has submitted on this issue to date. This list will continue to be updated with our latest communications.
- US - March 20, 2020
- Australia - March 26, 2020
- Belgium (French) - March 30, 2020
- Bulgaria - March 30, 2020
- Czech Republic - March 30, 2020
- Denmark - March 30, 2020
- Finland - March 30, 2020
- France (French) - March 27, 2020
- Germany (German) - April 2, 2020
- India - March 26, 2020
- Indonesia - March 26, 2020
- Ireland - March 27, 2020
- Italy - March 30, 2020
- Japan - March 26, 2020 (Japanese version)
- Korea - March 30, 2020
- Malaysia - March 26, 2020
- Netherlands - March 27, 2020
- New Zealand - March 26, 2020
- Philippines - March 26, 2020
- Poland - March 30, 2020
- Romania - March 30, 2020
- Singapore - March 26, 2020
- Spain - March 27, 2020
- Sweden - March 30, 2020
- Thailand - March 26, 2020 (Thai version)
- United Kingdom - March 27, 2020
- Vietnam - April 2, 2020 (Vietnamese version)
ABOUT BSA
BSA | The Software Alliance (www.bsa.org) is the leading advocate for the global software industry before governments and in the international marketplace. Its members are among the world’s most innovative companies, creating software solutions that help businesses of all sizes in every part of the economy to modernize and grow.
With headquarters in Washington, DC, and operations in more than 30 countries, BSA pioneers compliance programs that promote legal software use and advocates for public policies that foster technology innovation and drive growth in the digital economy.