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E-government Update

Welcome to @your.service, a regular round up of e-government news from New Zealand.

We aim to reach a broad audience, including government people, suppliers of IT and telecommunications services, people in the community who are following the progress of e-government, as well as international audiences.

Issue 11 - September 2004

SecureMail enters new phase


The SecureMail team has successfully completed a six-month project to develop a secure email architecture for government email to people and business.

Many communications between government, businesses and people include personal in-confidence information. Sending such information over the Internet requires sufficient security to protect the privacy and rights of an individual as well as the integrity of an organization. SecureMail has been designed to meet this need, thus enabling government, businesses and people to routinely use email as a method of communicating.

An analogy is that SecureMail provides the option to send a message on letterhead paper in a sealed envelope, where previously all messages were typically sent as a postcard.

The first phase of the project included:

  • establishment of an E-government Interoperability Framework (e-GIF) SecureMail working group
  • completion of High Level User requirements by the working group
  • completion of technical proof of concept by Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) and Ministry of Health in conjunction with New Zealand Post and Telecom
  • identification of generic government agency business and legal issues following consultation with agencies and service providers
  • development of governance model, business model and high level requirements, and
  • planning of the required next steps for implementation

A programme of work to support the implementation of SecureMail is to be carried out from August 2004 to December 2005. This will include:

  • encouraging the adoption of SecureMail by government, businesses and people
  • assisting with SecureMail pilots and initial implementations
  • refining the draft technical requirements in light of the lessons learned from the pilot programmes
  • developing security audit requirements to ensure compliance with the Government's security standards, and
  • continuing development of governance and infrastructure to support the SecureMail programme

For more information: www.e-government.govt.nz/securemail/

Specific questions, or requests for advice on how to implement SecureMail can be emailed to securemail@ssc.govt.nz

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