Government expects action on GCIO review

State Services Minister Jonathan Coleman and Internal Affairs Minister Chris Tremain expect the public sector to put a much stronger focus on privacy and security, following the release of a review of the Government’s ICT systems today.

The Government Chief Information Officer (GCIO) Colin MacDonald has published a review of the Government’s publicly accessible ICT systems such as kiosks, wi-fi networks and web services.

The review found privacy and security processes within many agencies were under-developed and relied too much on the individual skills and capabilities of staff and suppliers.

The Government directed the State Services Commission and the GCIO to develop a work programme to address the issues raised in the report when it received it in December 2012.

“New Zealanders expect government agencies will be doing everything they can to ensure the integrity of public sector ICT systems,” Dr Coleman says.

“We expect every public service department and agency to comply fully with the agreed plan of action.”

The GCIO review, which covered 215 publicly accessible information systems across 70 government agencies, found 12 agencies had a weak point in the security of one of their publicly accessible systems. These issues were quickly resolved and there is no evidence of any actual privacy breach.

“The public release of the GCIO’s review was delayed to enable testing within these 12 agencies to ensure there were no further weak points. Naming agencies can make them a target for hackers, and we did not want to put these systems at risk from cyber-attacks,” Mr Tremain says.

“The GCIO review has highlighted the importance of clear oversight of ICT systems and processes. In addition to the actions already underway, the Government has been developing an ICT Assurance Framework, which will be released later this month. This will strengthen the role of the GCIO to provide an extra layer of ICT assurance across the public sector.”

The GCIO’s review and further information on the work programme is available on the State Services Commission website at: www.ssc.govt.nz/GCIO-publicsystemsreview.

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