The ASPI’s Gill Savage and Anne Lyons have published an article entitled: “Opportunities for reforming the Australian government’s data centre procurement arrangements”, which wisely starts off by noting that “Data has been referred to as the ‘new oil’ or ‘new gold’, but it’s more than that. Most organisations can’t function without it. That applies equally to governments”.
The article continues, noting that “Australian government data creation, collection, storage and analysis has grown and continues to grow, as does government reliance on it.
“With continued government policy directions promoting increased outsourcing of data storage, processing and cloud storage, the value and protection that disaggregation and diversification generate may be lost in the absence of appropriate oversight.”
We’re told that it “looks at the unintended consequences of the government’s procurement arrangements for data centre services. It is aimed at shaping a better conversation on issues, challenges and factors to consider in the management of outsourced data centre arrangements”.
Macquarie Government has responded, stating it “believes the ASPI Devolved data centre decisions report today shows government data is at serious risk with 79% of it housed with only one provider, a risk that would never be tolerated in the corporate world.
“Government departments are not considering the aggregated risk created as each agency moves data to this one provider and this should be a genuine concern for the Australian Government to address”.
Aidan Tudehope, the MD of Macquarie Government said: “ASPI’s report highlights risks to government data from a whole-of-government perspective.
“Clearly, having 79 per cent of all government data housed with one provider – as the ASPI report has found – is a very big risk. This is an ‘eggs in one basket’ situation that should be a genuine concern for government.
“In the corporate world, organisations would never tolerate such risks to their data and will often ensure they have supplier diversity in case the unthinkable ever happens. It’s unclear why government departments don’t do likewise.
“While individual government departments may be considering their specific circumstances and risk exposures, they are not assessing the risks created from decisions made by multiple government agencies in aggregate. This aggregated risk rises every time a government agency moves its data into this single provider.”
More information on the report is here.
