At the ICT Seminar, Digital ID and Data Governance was discussed centered on creating data ecosystems, simplifying, managing and sharing data to benefit the private and public sector.
The Digital ID and Data Governance session received input speakers from the Department of Information Communication Technology (DICT), YuTru, a digital trust framework, and the Civil and Identity Registry.
Robert Asari, Executive Manager, DICT Digital Government & Shared Services said data must be seen as an asset in order for it to have value and be used in value chains.
He said the challenges that affected data governance in the public sector include inefficient government business processes like lengthy registration processes and such as those for passports and business registration and outdated statistics that influence policy decisions.
Other challenges included the lack of transparent monitoring and control, data security and extravagant sending on similar function data systems.
“We need to start exchanging the data and having control mechanisms around the data. It is very important to understand the transition from where are now and how we see the value of data and where we want to go.”
“We will start by creating a framework around all that and once we have all these different framework in place, we realise that data governance is very key,” Mr Asari added.
He recommended for cresting a secure data exchange that involved making data distributed, secure, heterogeneous, reliable, easy to use and be integrated with more than one system.
Tony Willenberg, CEO of YuTru, spoke on importance of having a digital ID to access services and touched on the importance of having access to digital resources that create and hold data.
YuTru is a scheme that works in the digital identification of people and businesses, with the aim of the promoting financial inclusion and economic and social empowerment in Papua New Guinea.
“In order to define and govern and control access to data, access to computing resources, access to web services, access to information across the government, you need to understand who it is that is making that access. You cannot control what we cannot identify,” said Mr Willenberg.
The PNG National Identity Card (NID) was discussed with emphasis on how best to protect the data collected and how to link it other systems and processes
Deputy Registrar of the Civil and Identity Registry, Salome Bogosia said protection nof data is a policy issues that comes under the jurisdiction of the DICT, who are in charge of policy and regulating how data can be collected and protected.
“NID data is regulated by PNG Civil and Identity Registration Bill amended 2014 and it requires a lot security features on it as well, so security is important to data collection.”
She added that in protecting NID Data, the registry uses a standalone system.
“It’s a feature that Huawei put in that was important in terms of security itself. The fact that its standalone means that it’s not accessible through the internet and it’s a layer of security that’s critical to the whole NID system itself.
