Framework for e-Government

Security, Green ICT and Data Management

Tom Worthington FACS CP HLM

Adjunct Lecturer, Australian National University

For the Henan Delegation, 16 February 2012
安全,绿色ICT和数据管理

Tom Worthington FACS CP

Tom Worthington at TEDx Canberra 2011. Photo courtesy of TEDx

Tom Worthington is an IT consultant and course designer for vocational and postgraduate university courses. In 2010 he was awarded Canberra ICT Educator of the Year by the Australian Computer Society, for his work on sustainable e-learning. Tom is an Adjunct Senior Lecturer at the Australian National University. In 1999 he was elected a Fellow of the Australian Computer Society for his contribution to the development of public Internet policy and was the senior policy adviser in Data Administration Standards at Headquarters Australian Defence Force (HQADF). He is a Past President, Honorary Life Member, Certified Professional and a Certified Computer Professional of the society as well as a voting member of the Association for Computing Machinery and a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

Topics

  1. Framework for e-Government
  2. Security
  3. Data Management
  4. Green ICT

Framework for e-Government

Ms Ann Steward, Australian Government Chief Information Officer

Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO), headed by Ms Ann Steward, Australian Government Chief Information Officer

Polices are publicly available on the web:

  1. Australian Government Architecture (AGA): A common language for delivery of cross-agency services
  2. National e-Authentication Framework: authenticating the identity of the other party in a transaction

The Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO) is headed by Ms Ann Steward, the Australian Government Chief Information Officer. The Office is located in the Department of Finance and issues policy w\hich all government agencies are required to follow and gives advice. The Office coordinates ICT standards with local government, private industry and the governments of other countries.

The Office produces excellent policy documents and technical manuals, which are publicly available on the web. Their series of e-Government policies include: the Australian Government Architecture (AGA): a common language for delivery of cross-agency services, and the National e-Authentication Framework: authenticating the identity of the other party in a transaction.

What is most important is that the Office selects from common practice already in use in industry and by other governments. This ensures that government agencies will be able to work with each other and with industry.

Open Government

Lindsay Tanner, Minister for Finance and Deregulation

Lindsay Tanner, Minister for Finance and Deregulation, made a "Declaration of Open Government" via a Blog, in 2010.

The Government now releases reports under a Creative Commons Licence.

Sensitive information is kept separate and secure, even if it uses Internet Protocols.

In 2010, the then Minister for Finance and Deregulation, Lindsay Tanner, , made a "Declaration of Open Government" via a Blog. The Government now releases reports under a Creative Commons Licence, encouraging sharing and distribution of information. The previous restrictive copyright requirements have been removed. Sensitive information is still kept secure and separate from the publicly released information. By reducing the amount of information which is not public, the system is more secure.

The Australian Government uses separate computer systems for security and defence applications, although these systems may use the Internet Protocols.

Australian Government Cyber Security

Cyber Security Operations Centre (CSOC) at the Defence Signals Directorate

The Attorney-General’s Department is responsible for national cyber security policy.

The Defence Signals Directorate provide technical security advice Strategies to Mitigate Targeted Cyber Intrusions

The Attorney-General’s Department is responsible for national cyber security policy, including for private companies and to encourage private citizens to take security seriously. By its nature some of this work is classified, but there are general policy manuals available on the web. The Defence Signals Directorate (DSD) provide technical security advice Strategies to Mitigate Targeted Cyber Intrusions. DSD also run a Cyber Security Operations Centre (CSOC) to respond to major cyber attacks. The Australian Computer Emergency Response Team (AusCERT) is a non-government organisation which provides advice and assistance to companies and government agencies with security problems.

The important point is for organisations to have trained cyber security staff who know and trust their counterparts in the government and private organisations, so that they can act quickly when there is an attack.

Australian Government Cyber Security White Paper

Mr Rupert Hollin is Acting National Security Chief Information Officer (NSCIO) and Cyber Policy Coordinator (CPC) in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, preparing a Cyber Policy White Paper for 2012.

The Australian Computer Society Cyber Policy Proposals were:

  1. greater focus on education ...
  2. greater assistance to small and medium sized business ...
  3. policy coordination on trusted identities
  4. better coordination of cyber related education and research
  5. providing consumers and businesses with resources ...
  6. global Internet governance changes ...

Mr Rupert Hollin is Acting National Security Chief Information Officer (NSCIO) and Cyber Policy Coordinator (CPC) in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. The Department previously had little involvement in computer security matters, but in September 2011 issued a call for input to a Cyber Policy White Paper, to be released in 2012. The Australian Computer Society Cyber Policy Proposals were:

  1. greater focus on education - noting that ICT education in primary and secondary schooling is essential to developing ICT skills of the future and that school level educational activity forms the base on which appropriate tertiary level education programs can function for the education and training of ICT professionals
  2. greater assistance to small and medium sized business as this is the engine room of the Australian economy 3
  3. policy coordination on trusted identities
  4. better coordination of cyber related education and research
  5. providing consumers and businesses with resources directed to the everyday real-life challenges they face
  6. global Internet governance changes designed to underpin and deliver trustworthy people, processes and systems including, where appropriate, a legislated mandatory baseline of trustworthiness attributes analogous to the non-excludable warranties implied in consumer contacts.

Data Management

Diagram of the digital preservation process with the National Archives of Australia's Digital Preservation Software Platform (DPSP): First create manifest, then process files and lastly check integrity

Professor John McMillan AO, the Australian Information Commissioner, provides advice to government on information management policy.

National Archives of Australia (NAA) issues standards for information management.

NAA developed free open source "Digital Preservation Software Platform" for keeping electronic documents.

The notes for my ANU course "Electronic Document and Records Management" are available online.

Professor John McMillan AO, the Australian Information Commissioner, provides advice to government on information management policy. Australia generally follows European standards for access to personal information.

The National Archives of Australia (NAA) issues standards for information management. NAA developed free open source "Digital Preservation Software Platform" for keeping electronic documents. This software is available to download and use for free. It includes

:
  1. Xena - Xena stands for XML Electronic Normalising for Archives. Xena converts digital files to standards based, open formats.

  2. Digital Preservation Recorder (DPR) - DPR handles bulk preservation of digital files via an automated workflow.

  3. Checksum Checker - Checksum Checker is a piece of software that is used to monitor the contents of a digital archive for data loss or corruption.

  4. Manifest Maker - Manifest Maker produces a tab-separated list of digital files in a specified location. The manifest includes the checksum, path and filename of each digital file.

The notes for my Australian National University course "Electronic Document and Records Management" are available online.

As with security, it is important to have trained staff and follow standards.

Green ICT

ICT Sustainability book cover

Computers and telecommunications equipment contributed 1.52% to greenhouse gas emissions in Australian in 2005. Data centres and client equipment can be made more efficient to reduce these emissions.

Techniques can be used to reduce this with better data centres and client equipment. The Australian Government has a set of Green ICT Quick Wins, as a set of simple steps organisations can take. The European Commission has Best Practice Guidelines for Data Centre Energy Efficiency. The US EPA's Energy Star Program has equipment standards. There are free E-learning course notes available.

More Information

  1. Notes for Electronic Document and Records Management
  2. Book "ICT Sustainability", Tom Worthington, 2011: Kindle, iPad, ePub, PDF eBooks, Paperback and web
  3. Tom Worthington
  4. This document is available at: www.tomw.net.au/technology/it/egovernment_framework/ and machine translated into Chinese: 安全,绿色ICT和数据管理

Slides for these notes are also available. 也可对这些票据的幻灯片

Version 1.2, 20 February 2012 Tom Worthington

Creative Commons License
Framework for e-Government: Security, Green ICT and Data Management by Tom Worthington is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.