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1 Introduction

1 Overview

  1. The E-government Unit has directed the Secure Electronic Environment (S.E.E.) Project to scope the development of a Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) for use among NZ government agencies. This will ensure that State sector agencies that decide to adopt Public Key Technology (PKT) for any purpose do so in a consistent manner governed by clear Government policy.

  2. It is expected that the policies and practices that constitute the NZ Government PKI will be able to be adopted by non-central government organisations (public and private) wishing to use PKT for their own purposes. In such cases, the Crown will not take any liability.

  3. Once the Government PKI policy has been agreed and implemented, consideration will be given to the question of mutual recognition between the New Zealand Government PKI and the PKIs of other government.

  4. This document is intended as a guide for those wishing to implement Public Key Technology (PKT) before the formal PKI is available. It draws on the experience and knowledge gained from the S.E.E. Project. It is, in effect, an exposure draft that will be developed and refined before being presented to the Government in 2001.

  5. There will be different requirements for different environments - the PKI described in this document targets the protection of inter-agency communication of SENSITIVE information. This document can be considered the basis of an Interim PKI.

  6. The S.E.E. Project has also recommended:

  • the use of the Internet as the carrier for communication among government agencies,

  • the use of individual end-user digital certificates for authentication against servers for inter-agency collaboration,

  • the use of gateway to gateway products to secure inter-agency email traffic,

  • the use of individual end-user digital certificates for securing email traffic among small closed groups of users requiring high security.

2 Status of this document

  1. This document is currently published on the New Zealand Government Online website http://www.govt.nz/ as an exposure draft. Government departments and agencies, local government, industry and citizens are all encouraged to comment and suggest ways of improving these guidelines.

  2. The E-Government Unit at the State Services Commission will formalise these draft interim guidelines into a policy. Feedback will be accepted until 28 February 2001, a draft policy will be completed by the end of April 2001, and the policy presented to Cabinet for sign-off by the end of June 2001.

3 Contact details

  1. If you have comments or questions please email e-government@ssc.govt.nz

4 Acknowledgements

  1. This document is based on learning from S.E.E. Prototype, the Treasury's CFISnet system, research, and from discussions with subject matter experts including:

  • Baycorp ID Services,

  • KPMG,

  • PricewaterhouseCoopers.

5 Disclaimer

  1. The content of this report reflects the opinions and experiences of the S.E.E. Project Team. Any assertion made, or views expressed, are those of the project team, and not those of the agencies from which the team members were drawn. The content in this report does not in any way whatsoever reflect the official policy of any of the agencies involved in the S.E.E. project, nor does it reflect official New Zealand Government policy.

  2. Throughout this document we ask for your feedback; please note that your feedback will be official information in terms of the Official Information Act 1982 and, in line with the policy of that Act, such information may be released to the public unless there is good reason, in terms of that Act, to withhold the information.


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