Sri Lankan government digital transformation plans include sovereign cloud

The government is discussing with several local and foreign parties to conceptualize a government sovereign cloud and intends to engage with qualified players and have a mechanism for all of them to participate in setting it up, top officials said.

Sri Lanka is in the midst of establishing a national digital ID, and maintaining the sovereignty and security of the sensitive data involved has been an often-repeated concern.

“We need a sovereign cloud for the country which can meet all local and international security standards. We are currently in discussions with potential parties, to establish a mechanism for all qualified local and international players to participate in the cloud setup process,” Sanjaya Karunasena, director of the Information Communication Technology Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA) told Biometric Update on Wednesday.

The government must ensure data security by rigorously testing and securing citizen data, as well as providing service warranties, to protect personal information, he explained further.

He said biometric-backed digital identity would provide a highly reliable, robust identity system in cyberspace for the Sri Lankan people. He mentioned the need for numerous gates and security testing of the system before it can be made available for public use. The plan for a national data exchange, which would work with Sri Lanka’s cloud, was detailed earlier in February.

Addressing the issue of security, Dr. Hans Wijesuriya, chief adviser to the President on Digital Economy and secretary to the Ministry of Digital Economy noted that, fundamental security and control assemblies come first and that this can be subject to a proportionate assessment of risk and granular data in use. “Different types of data need different treatments in terms of risk mitigation. So, there are many layers which lend themselves to integration and the extension of horizontal layers. We should look at multiple dimensions for citizen-centric services without compromising national security. Also, we will look at businesses in a cross-border angle and in an inclusion angle, where business-to-business (B2B) interfaces can especially boost trade volumes and transactions in the region,” he said at the Innovation Island Summit in Colombo recently.

Article Topics

biometrics  |  cloud computing  |  cloud services  |  data protection  |  digital government  |  national ID  |  SL-UDI  |  Sri Lanka  |  Sri Lanka National Data Exchange (NDX)