Actions to date

In November 2003, the E-government Unit issued advice to agencies to not enable DRM features of recently available software called "information rights management" which is part of Microsoft Server 2003 and Office 2003. This message is also still posted on the E-government web site. The reasons for this advice are still relevant today, and this advice is reconfirmed.

Research and analysis has been undertaken by the E-government Unit to keep informed about the latest TC developments and to better understand their implications for New Zealand. This work has included:

• communicating with government agencies, research organisations and various technology and policy experts around the world
• having preliminary discussions with representatives of various New Zealand government agencies, including the Ministry of Economic Development, National Library, Archives New Zealand, GCSB, and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner
• engaging a technical expert to evaluate the technologies and explore some of their implications for New Zealand government agencies
• engaging with representatives of Microsoft to test whether our understanding of the technologies is in accord with their latest thinking, and to have drafts of our consultant's work peer reviewed by them.

Next steps

The E-government Unit will be undertaking further work in this area which will include:

• Investigating appropriate and practicable means for agencies to configure their systems to actively filter out DRM from any files or records that are received, or to return such files to the sender - in the short to medium term.
• Coordinating the process through which government agencies should consider and report on the long term implications of the use of TC and DRM for their own agency.
• Developing principles regarding New Zealand Government use of trusted computing, and consulting with various parties about them including New Zealand government agencies, other governments, and members of the Trusted Computing Group.
• Monitoring what other countries are doing with regard to trusted computing and integrity of government information, and continuing to share our work with them through channels such as the OECD.
• Continuing to engage in dialogue with key ICT industry players in the field of TC.