Saint Martin and the Caribbean are stepping up their cybersecurity efforts
On Tuesday 20 October at Collège 900, Louis Mussington and local councillors hosted the C-CIRC for the first time – a forum dedicated to cybersecurity in the Caribbean. At the heart of this groundbreaking event, topics such as digital transformation and technological innovations will be discussed. Three days of meetings and workshops aimed at strengthening regional cooperation.
In his inaugural speech, the President of the Collectivité emphasised: “Digital challenges affect the entire Caribbean region. Today, we must address our vulnerabilities in the face of increasingly sophisticated cyber-attacks. ’ These malicious attacks do indeed disrupt the functioning of institutions and essential services, and compromise sensitive data.
A project with regional and local scope
The C-CIRC (Caribbean Cybersecurity Incident Response Community) project, co-funded by the European Union under the INTERREG Caribbean 2021–2027 programme, and funded to the tune of 2 million euros by the ERDF, was set up to pool the resources of the various Caribbean countries, given the uneven distribution of response capabilities across the region. To illustrate this situation, the symbolic meeting was held in Saint Martin, where two countries with different systems of governance must collaborate on the same small island. This initiative will therefore enable closer collaboration between the French and Dutch sides, as part of a programme running from 2025 to 2031. This inaugural meeting in La Savane officially marks the launch of its implementation.
Two days of discussions in Saint Martin and a final day in Saint Barthélemy
On 20 and 21 October, workshops were held at Soualiga College with various public and private stakeholders in the sector, with a view to pooling resources and strengthening local expertise: “You have to know your enemy better to apply the best solution,” declared Cédric Pradel, Director-General of the Caribbean Cybersecurity Agency (ACCYB), during the opening day. One speaker also highlighted the need to retain qualified personnel in this field within the Caribbean region, as they tend to migrate to other parts of the world. Topics such as anticipating these threats through intelligence-sharing and simulation exercises were discussed in particular.
The meeting concluded with a final day in Saint-Barthélemy, featuring a round-table discussion on the deployment of submarine cables – the region’s digital lifelines, around which security must be developed – and a second round-table discussion on the role of artificial intelligence in the development of cybersecurity. This is a crucial point, given the volume of data that needs to be analysed to ensure the effectiveness of security systems.
Following this forum, the work undertaken should lead to the establishment of the C-CIRC’s governing bodies, the finalisation of the 2027 action plan and the operational implementation of the first shared tools.
