Rethinking data protection during the ideas boom

Implementing a single, secure, data protection platform can alleviate the headaches of government CIOs and IT administrators.

May 2016 will mark exactly three years since the federal government announced its national cloud strategy. Since the announcement, various agencies and even state governments have moved at varied pace towards the cloud.

Recently, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull also announced the National Innovation and Science Agenda and enthusiastically welcomed everyone to the ‘Ideas Boom’. A key component of this is the development of a Digital Marketplace. Modelled on the UK Government’s ‘G-Cloud’, the Digital Marketplace will serve as an online directory of digital and technological services for government agencies to procure ICT solutions from start-ups and small to medium-sized enterprises.

With a prototype Digital Marketplace expected in early 2016 and over 7000 datasets now publicly available and growing, it won’t be long before we see examples of ideas becoming reality through the combination of data, technology and smart minds. Initiatives such as the National Map (developed by NICTA, now known as Data61) are just the start of what’s possible. However, with more data becoming publicly available, do government agencies need to rethink their approach to data protection?

The short answer is yes. Coupled with the Digital Marketplace, the federal government is also mandating making all non-sensitive public data openly available by default. This ‘data sharing for innovation’ is designed to make government more citizen-focused, and develop new and innovative products and services.

With the number of datasets open to the public continuing to grow, the challenge for the government and its agencies will be in ensuring the highest standards of privacy and security are adhered to when dealing with personal and commercial data.

And so we now enter an age of ‘public data by default’, and the associated data protection challenges that accompany it. These challenges will likely be the most complex that any of the government agency CIOs and IT administrators have faced. While the imperative of data protection in a data-sharing-for-innovation model might seem like a contradiction, the key to the solution is to integrate data protection mechanisms that are manageable through a common framework for a comprehensive solution.

This is where a data fabric approach can help. A data fabric makes modern IT systems work. It seamlessly connects different data management environments across disparate clouds into a cohesive, integrated whole, and provides the data control and choice needed to operationalise the hybrid cloud. With this approach, organisations can manage, secure, protect and move their data across the hybrid cloud, no matter where it lives.

As we move into the public-data-by-default age, the availability of a single, secure, data protection platform has the ability to alleviate the headaches of government CIOs and IT administrators. Adopting a data fabric strategy is foundational to supporting the ideas boom, enabling data to be seamlessly shared and foster innovation.

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