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CIOs Talk E-Governance At NASIRE Conference
BALTIMORE — Chief information officers and private sector representatives from companies such as BellSouth, Microsoft and Qwest gathered here this week for the summer conference of the National Association of State Information Resource Executives (NASIRE).
Policy analysts, CIOs and information resources executives wrangled Tuesday over the best path to take toward developing consistent privacy and security policies when putting government online.
Federal and state legislators, attorneys general and the private sector are in the midst of a battle over the best way to develop privacy guidelines that will assuage privacy concerns, but not hinder e-commerce.
"Americans want to control their own destiny," Idaho Controller J.D. Williams said. "A lot of what we do is difficult because we’re (states) like 50 different laboratories."
Williams implied that, as a matter of policy, consumers’ personal information should only be disseminated upon consent for one particular transaction. But Information Services Executive Council (ISEC) Director Mike Turner — who heads the group that represents 14 of the largest information aggregators in the country — said "public record is public," and that "you also have to consider that there are benefits that come from the use" of personal information.
Panelists were quick to stress that privacy and security are two different issues and often get confused during policy debates. Whereas privacy is the who, what, when, where and how data is transferred, Iowa CIO Richard Varn noted, security is the enforcement of privacy policies.
Security is yet another issue rearing its ugly head in the states. Kansas Executive Chief Information Technology Officer Don Heiman said his state’s government infrastructure is hacked into four times a week, on average. Heiman said he "dreams" of a national alert center where state agencies can confidentially disclose security intrusions in their networks and receive feedback on how to prevent them. He said he has met with federal and state government officials on the issue but progress is slow.
"This is not for the faint-hearted, it’s a tough area in terms of protecting technology," Heiman said. "We have a stewardship, a responsibility to secure our systems. If we don’t do it, we’re liable."
More and more governors are jumping on the privacy bandwagon, said National Governors’ Association’s Center for Best Practices Policy Advisor Tom Unrah. "We need to be talking about these issues in ways that look beyond immediate personal issues," he said.
But some are critical of states legislating privacy standards. Turner said Idaho Attorney General Alan Lance is saying Idaho will be the first state to develop an opt-in standard, a move Turner said, has "tremendous commerce implications."
More dialogue is necessary before mandating privacy policies, said Georgia CIO Larry Singer. "Please, don’t encourage AGs to do a single-noose policy," he said.
Governors Address E-governance
The e-governance task force Maryland Gov. Parris Glendening, D, appointed in July when he took over as chairman of the National Governors' Association is in full swing and looking for solutions to the e-government revolution. Task force co-chairs, Kentucky Gov. Paul Patton, D, and Wyoming Gov. Jim Geringer, R, addressed NASIRE conferees via satellite.
Patton, at a Southern Governors’ Conference in Little Rock, AR, with Glendening, stressed the important role CIOs will play in e-government, as information technology "is a critical enabler of state governments," he said. It will be the state CIOs who "plan for the future of state technology."
Geringer said there are three things to keep in mind when thinking about e-government. First, don’t just automate, but transform; instead of just posting passive displays of information on a Web site, enable citizens to take charge. "We are the facilitators," he said.
The second is that state agencies have to share data across boundaries to establish cooperative partnerships. Lastly, focus on the customer and how the recipient of state services feels about services.
Geringer also noted that privacy is the "most important" thing to keep in mind when putting government services online.
"The public will have to believe that their perceived benefit offsets any potential risk they have," he said of citizens making electronic transactions in areas such as Social Security. And "it’s very key we have participation form the private sector," like the heads of corporations to develop sound privacy policies and standards. "We need that combination of policy awareness and policy understanding," he said.
It’s All About The Leaders
E-government expert and Harvard University analyst Jerry Mechling told conference attendees that there are two broad agendas to reaching an electronic government: e-services and e-government. But a panel of CIOs agreed that states are far from their goal of transforming into electronic governments.
"This really, I think, is a leadership set of challenges and agenda much different than what we were facing 10 years ago, even five years ago," Mechling said. "The basic shift we’ve seen is away from that position" where state leaders leave the tech-aspects of policy to a designated tech staff, he said. "The show-stopper is not the technology side, but really the leadership side."
Leadership Changing Hands
NASIRE President Otto Doll stepped down Tuesday as the organization’s first vice president, Aldona Valicenti took over the position. Doll was appointed as South Dakota's chief information officer in July 1996. Valicenti has been Kentucky’s CIO since December 1997.
State News
New York Web Site Is Top Of The Line
New York Gov. George Pataki, R, Tuesday announced that the state’s Web site network has been ranked second out of 50 states in a nationwide study of government Web sites conducted by Brown University. New York’s Internet Permit Assistance Database also has been recognized by civic.com magazine and received the Year 2000 Eastern Regional Government Technology Conference "Best Solutions Award For Business Permitting on the Web."
The Wild, Wild West Meets The World Wide Web
Sen. Conrad Burns, R-MT, Friday announced a $1 million Billings, MT-based program that will offer health care and education opportunities on Indian reservations using communications technologies. The Rocky Mountain Technology Foundation will use technologies like video conferencing to offer classes students to the state’s two-year Indian colleges that would otherwise not have access. A statement from Burns’ office said that as a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Burns’ $1 million request was secured in the Interior Appropriations bill and he is "optimistic" that more funding for the foundation will be included in the Labor, Education, HHS Appropriations bill.
Texas Gets Into The Info-Sharing War
Texas Attorney General John Cornyn last week announced the formation of the Texas Internet Bureau, a new division within the Attorney General's office to fight fraud and crime on the Internet. The bureau will look into crimes such as the exploitation of children in online chatrooms, Internet porn, illegal fraud, illegal online pharmacies, hacking and virus spreading. The bureau will be headed by Reid Wittliff, a former assistant U.S. attorney in Dallas who has prosecuted these types of cases, and Mike Marshall, who has over 10 years experience in Internet applications and online child porn investigations.
In related news, Cornyn reached a settlement with living.com Monday to prevent the bankrupt online furniture retailer from selling customer lists and consumers’ financial information without their consent. The case is pending in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Austin and was originally filed by the state.
The settlement requires a court-appointed bankruptcy trustee to oversee the destruction of customers’ personal information and who can sell a list — void of credit card, bank account, or social security numbers — after notifying all living.com customers and giving them the chance to opt-out of the transaction.
Attorneys for the Austin-based living.com wrote in bankruptcy filings last month that the company may sell customer information to "trustworthy third parties" unless customers sent an e-mail requesting otherwise. Living.com and Shaw Furniture Galleries filed for bankruptcy Aug. 29.
Polling Around On Net Taxes
The International Council for Shopping Centers this week released the results of polls taken in California, Missouri and Illinois on public support for placing sales taxes on Internet purchases.
Of the 500 likely voters surveyed in Missouri, 64 percent agreed that exempting Internet purchases from state sales taxes is unfair to local business owners; 54 percent said that not taxing sales could jeopardize funding for public schools and services; and 68 percent thought tax exemption would result in the government raising other taxes to account for the lost revenue. Results showed that 56 percent also thought it was unfair to low-income residents without Net access to have to pay sales tax while others with access can avoid paying them.
Illinois results showed that of the 400 surveyed, 46 percent were in favor of the taxes, while 36 were opposed. Seventy-six percent thought Net tax exemption was unfair to local business owners; 69 percent thought other taxes would be raised as a result of exemption; and 65 percent feel low-income residents would be unfairly taxed.
Of the 800 California residents surveyed, 59 percent said Net tax exemption was unfair; 51 percent said low-income residents without would be unfairly taxed; 56 percent disagreed that taxing the Internet would slow the economy; and 59 percent didn’t believe that collecting online sales taxes was too complicated.
- by Liza Porteus
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