Barriers to a Digital and Mobile Government

Apr 23
19:11

2013

Jennifer Lewis

Jennifer Lewis

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Consider these facts from the digital government document available on whitehouse.gov that bears the tagline “building a 21st century government that works better for the American people”:

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Consider these facts from the digital government document available on whitehouse.gov that bears the tagline “building a 21st century government that works better for the American people”:

1. Mobile broadband subscriptions are expected to grow from nearly 1 billion in 2011 to over 5 billion globally in 2016.

2. By 2015,Barriers to a Digital and Mobile Government Articles more Americans will access the Internet via mobile devices than desktop PCs.

3. As of March 2012, 46% of American adults were smartphone owners – up from 35% in May 2011.

4. In 2011, global smartphone shipments exceeded personal computer shipments for the first time in history.

When a 5.9 earthquake hit near Richmond, Virginia on August 23rd, 2011, residents in New York City read about the quake on Twitter feeds 30 seconds before they experienced the quake themselves.

After reading the above facts, some trends become clear. Firstly, smart devices are pervading the way of life of Americans like never before. Secondly, these gadgets, while great as providing functionalities for personal use, also find applicability in the federal and state government functioning. Lastly, and most importantly, the source of these facts indicates that the government is taking notice. This shows a very positive trend towards modernization, which will go a long way in improving the interaction between the populace and various departments that impact their lives.

In the digital government strategy document, there is explicit focus on mobility. As per the Action 10.2 of the document, [the focus will be to] “Evaluate opportunities to accelerate the secure adoption of mobile technologies into the Federal environment at reduced cost.” To achieve this, he Information Security and Identity Management Committee (ISIMC), by direction of the Federal CIO Council, has chartered a Mobile Technology Tiger Team (MTTT). MTTT has been working on finding the right avenues of mobility expansion, and doing a lot of research towards the goal of realizing the same.

As per the December 2012 document titled “GOVERNMENT USE OF MOBILE TECHNOLOGY”, he team has identified capability, cost and security as the initial key areas around which the research and execution work needs to be centered.

Under the capabilities section, the team has identified the pace of technological evolution and the lag between it and the evolution of management platforms like MDM and MAS, along with the inherent complexity of a fragmented device market as some of the challenges faced. They have also found that while BYOD uptake was decent, the legal, privacy and financial policies around it were still to be ironed out. Legacy modernization, and additional infra and other changes required to support mobility were other concerns.

From a cost perspective, the primary concern was that there was no administration-wide carrier contract, which may drive up the cost. Further, as with any enterprise, the ROI and business case for mobility is generally not easy to calculate.  This along with the still maturing management market has a potential to burn a hole in the feds’ pockets.

The biggest challenge to mobilizing the IT of the powers that be however, is presented by the security and privacy concerns. Authentication, encryption, and personal identity verification are some of the key pillars that support the security mechanisms. MTTT believes that the current technologies available are not mature enough to address comprehensively all the functional requirements that are define the security needs of different agencies.

The first step towards progress is the identification of the goal, and the challenges along the way. The MTTT team seems to have a good handle on the same. The document goes on to describe the strategic roadmap, which will be covered in future articles.