Beat Watch
Security expert lauds Newfoundland’s response to data breach
The province of Newfoundland couldn’t have handled a recent data breach any better, according to security expert, Rian Wroblewski. Wroblewski is the director of open source intelligence with New York-based Tony Joseph and Sons Investigation Inc., the private investigation agency that notified the Newfoundland government last month of a data breach in which a total of 694 files containing personal information were exposed.
Ontario government boosts funding for health care research
A new research project in London, Ont., funded by the Ontario government is aiming to improve detection of neurological diseases such as brain cancer, stroke and Alzheimer’s disease, according to Minister of Research and Innovation John Wilkinson.
Ministry of Industry partners with UOIT on Canadian auto centre
Plans for the General Motors of Canada Automotive Centre of Excellence were recently unveiled by officials from GM and the University of Ontario Institute of Technology. The centre will be housed at the UOIT’s Oshawa campus and aims to enhance engineering competitiveness in Canada’s automotive sector.
Governance
UN rankings offer worrisome results
The United Nations recently published its 2008 Global E-Government Review, an exhaustive comparator of countries and trends from all regions of the world. Relative to the last such undertaking in 2005, Canada’s performance is stagnant, up one place from seventh to eighth.
Privacy
Information sharing and privacy present challenging juxtaposition
Social networking channels such as MySpace and Facebook have spawned virtual communities of users sharing personal information and bound by their common interests. It’s impossible to ignore the information-sharing potential of these tools and new government policies will have to take them into account – but how?
Feature
Governments are collecting increasing amounts of data about their citizens, and the need to handle all of it in a secure way is motivating ministries, departments and agencies to improve their IT security infrastructures. Although some are embracing the new defence imperative willingly and quickly, others are finding it a much tougher challenge.
Government 2.0
The rise and fall of the Government 2.0 Think Tank
Back in June 2006, when Facebook was still a university phenomenon, a group of civil servants started up the Government 2.0 Think Tank (G2TT) in Ottawa. Led by Patrick Cormier, then a military lawyer and a project director at the Department of National Defence (DND), G2TT’s aim was to provide a forum to connect people who want to use open source and Web 2.0 concepts to make governments more efficient and interactive.
HR
Canadian government tackles demographic crunch
The public sector faces some major challenges in replenishing its aging ranks, particularly in attracting young IT professionals to public service as university enrolments in computer science continue their steady decline.
E-Security
These WISE guys aim to shape future of wireless security
The world can’t get enough wireless. Canada’s Research in Motion has put a whole desktop of communication in anybody’s pocket. In California, rental cars now have optional high-speed Internet service. In Finland, cell phones unlock public washrooms.
