Security and Privacy – getting the technology of trust right is critical

Monday, November 26, 2007

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As news in the UK breaks of the personal data of over 7 million families “lost in the post” by HM Revenue and Customs, a ground-breaking report funded by the EC shows that the issue of trust in public authorities and technology systems is a major challenge for governments across Europe. 

While UK Chancellor Alistair Darling and colleagues apologise for their errors at the loss of details for 25 million child benefit recipients, ECOTEC Research & Consulting – in association with the Tavistock Institute - have released findings of a timely study looking at the impact of organisational change on eGovernment services for citizens. 

Trust, security and identity are the key themes at the heart of the paper, which argues that governments can and should get the technology of trust right. Security is no longer deemed to be a technology issue, nor is it enough to simply raise awareness of privacy issues associated with social networking sites such as Facebook. 

Instead, the paper argues that governments must understand that trust is a relationship, and building trust means achieving a balance between these concerns.  Trust enables security and security enables trust; the requirements of each must be met. 

The paper argues that a clear ‘pact’ is required to between citizens and governments concerning the use of citizens’ data to establish a clear basis for trust and promote a willingness to adopt electronic mechanisms.  It also considers misunderstandings surrounding issues of security and trust.Report author, Frank Wilson, says: 

“There is a risk that even electronic ID cards can potentially be misused.  As a result, verification in critical applications should combine card ‘possession’ with declaration of hard-to-copy information held by the person themselves; knowledge not encoded on the card; or with information that is intrinsically tied to each individual - such as biometric data.” 

ECOTEC Director, Professor Michael Blakemore, adds: 

“This study has demonstrated that trust in public authorities and their technological systems is a key issue for governments across Europe and one that will not go away.  Dealing with it will be the next great challenge of the digital world.” 

This week’s news of the loss of personal data affecting so many people in the UK raises once again the issue of trust, security and privacy in eGovernment systems, and is an issue that the UK government knows only too well is not going away. 

The paper (Think Paper 11) can be downloaded from here.