Government & Public Sector

Britain's National Health Service (NHS) awarded almost US$5 billion in contracts to develop lifelong electronic health records for 50 million patients in its systems linked to 30,000 doctors and 270 health care providers in England.

For a change, Kofi Annan, secretary-general of the United Nations (U.N.), didn't have to face an auditorium full of diplomats confronted with the threat of war when he took to the podium at the opening session of World Summit on the Information Society on Wednesday.

Bad guys had better think twice before driving through Miami-Dade County. Police officers there will soon have a powerful weapon in their arsenal with which to identify fugitives. A Web services initiative will provide Miami-Dade officers immediate access to the county's criminal database as well as to those administered by the state and the FBI.

Government negotiators from nearly 200 countries narrowed their differences on how to manage the Internet and protect freedom of expression online in an important round of preparatory talks over the weekend in Geneva, but failed to agree on how to fund the Internet's expansion in developing countries.

The U.K. government passed controversial communications surveillance laws last month, after a close-run debate in the House of Lords. These new laws will have a powerful impact on Internet service providers (ISPs ) and their U.K. customers. However, companies are not clear on how the law must be followed, ISPs and industry bodies say.

In its latest move to protect critical infrastructure, the Australian federal government yesterday launched a secure Web site to report information security attacks, but the initiative has raised the ire of Australia's Computer Emergency Response Team (AusCert) which has spent the last two years establishing a national reporting and alert system with a broad membership base.

The South African Department of Communications (DOC) this week announced that the cabinet has approved the Convergence Bill.

Employing a single e-government body to coordinate agencies is a sensible approach that's attracting international attention to New Zealand, said Canada-based Electronic Data Systems Corp. (EDS) government specialist Michel Brazeau.