Intel Cyber Security Innovation Summit

It is a pleasure to join you at this Cyber Security Innovation Summit organised by Intel Security. We rely more and more on the internet in every aspect of modern life – and that is true for individuals, for businesses, for governments and for organisations of all kinds.

In the same way our society relies very heavily on the motor car and on the roads over which cars travel.  When cars were first becoming widely used, one hundred years or more ago, it took a while for us to recognise the dangers. 

Over time, as road accidents rapidly became one of the major causes of death[1], we put increasing effort as a society and as individuals, into safety and security measures – such as better vehicle design, better road design, seat belts, laws against drink driving and so on.

Similarly, we are as a society increasingly recognising the dangers which the internet can bring – and taking measures to guard against those dangers.  This is where the work of a company like Intel Security is so important. 

When humans interact, be it online or offline, sadly there will be a percentage of cases where one person wants to do harm to another.  In the internet world the threat of viruses, botnets, ransomware and denial-of-service attacks is a reality.

There is much more we can do to capture the enormous social and economic benefits the internet can deliver.  Part of that is recognising – and guarding against – the dangers.

Today I want to speak about these issues, touching first on the potential of digital technology to revolutionise government – and the way that we serve citizens.

Next, I want to consider some of the potential blockers we need to overcome; and finally discuss the Abbott Government’s agenda in this space.

The Potential of Digital to Revolutionise Government

I’d like to start by looking at the potential of digital to revolutionise government.

A recent Deloitte Access Economics report, ‘Digital government transformation’ found that online transactions are more than 16 times cheaper than transactions over the phone, 30 times cheaper than postal transactions and a staggering 50 times cheaper than face-to-face transactions[2].

The report found that there are currently 320 million Australian government transactions conducted via face-to-face, telephone and post each year – almost 40 per cent of the total figure. If even half of these transactions were conducted online, there is room for a potential digital productivity and efficiency saving of $1.7 billion annually.

It should be said from the outset that the benefits of delivering government services online are not just to government itself, but also to consumers – in this case, citizens – who have become accustomed to the speed and simplicity of interacting with other service providers online.

Chief Technology Officer for the UK Government, Liam Maxwell, visited Australia last year to share the UK experience in using digital technology to transform government. 

As head of the UK’s ‘Government Digital Service’ initiative, Maxwell is charged with reshaping the UK Government’s service delivery platform to align with user expectations.

A blog post by Maxwell’s team describes the office’s approach: “We’re saying goodbye to the days of government services run as huge monolithic silos. Now we want to implement government as a platform, government made from platforms: re-usable, interconnected, easily replaced components that can be used and shared by everyone.”

The question Liam Maxwell asks of each government platform is this: “What is the user need?”

It sounds perfectly straightforward, but for governments around the world, the user need is all too often an afterthought when it comes to delivering services to citizens.

The potential of digital to revolutionise service delivery has been embraced by the business sector.  Businesses are providing better services to their users while enjoying the cost savings that result from transacting online.

Just think for a moment about how much better the user experience has become as an airline passenger.

Once, you had to make a booking in the office of a travel agent, and you would be issued with paper-based tickets which could take days to be processed and sent to you.

Today we expect to be able to book flights and hotels online from any device, anywhere, anytime; and have confirmation arrive via email instantly. Increasingly, the entire process is paperless, with the boarding pass sent to your smartphone.

The service experience today, compared to twenty years ago, is phenomenally improved.

The same could be said about banking, about buying books or clothes or music, about sector after sector.

With each passing year the size of the digital opportunity for government becomes greater – as Australians enthusiastically adopt technology.

We have high levels of smartphone and tablet penetration.

Today, 56 per cent of Australians own a tablet device and 72 per cent own a smart phone according to the Sensis e-Business report[3]. 

According to the 2014 Deloitte Mobile Consumer Survey, 46 per cent of Australians check their smartphone within 15 minutes of waking up – and amongst 18-24 year olds it is 75 per cent.

With smartphones and tablets offering low-cost, instant access to services such as banking and airline bookings, the opportunity for government to shift service delivery to mobile platforms has the potential to deliver improved outcomes for end-users and significant savings for governments.

To capitalise on the opportunity provided by moving services online, the Coalition took a policy of ‘Convenient Service Anytime Anywhere’ to the 2013 election. To deliver on this commitment, the government has established the Digital Transformation Office to make services available digitally from start to finish – more on this later.

The benefits, as we have seen from the work done in the UK, will be a better service experience for citizens, as well as being more cost effective for Government.

But there are some blockers

But while there is great potential in shifting government services to a digital-first model, there are some blockers.

The first blocker is citizen’s fears over the privacy and security of their data.

In Australia, perceptions of this issue have been affected for nearly thirty years by the experience of the Hawke Government’s ill-fated attempt to introduce the Australia Card in the 1980s.

The proposal was ultimately derailed by a popular campaign centred on concerns about privacy and government intrusion in the lives of citizens.

Looking back at the arguments used at the time, it is striking that the case for the Australia Card was largely made in terms of benefits for government. For example, Australians were told that it would improve tax compliance, reduce welfare fraud and reduce the number of government identification systems. There was not much attempt to demonstrate benefits to individual citizens.

When government seeks to impose something on citizens without them being persuaded of the benefits, it can inflame citizen suspicion.

In more recent times, scandals such as Wikileaks and the Edward Snowden revelations have dented public trust in the security of the data held by governments.

We have also seen many episodes where customer data held by corporates has been breached.

So if we are to maintain and build confidence in the digital environment as a medium for transacting, we need to put increased effort into data security.

Another threat to capturing the full potential of the internet as a medium for transacting – including between citizens and government – is threats to the online safety of citizens. 

If your email inbox is overwhelmed by spam or if your computer is constantly hit by viruses, you will be much less inclined to transact with government online.

Similarly online dangers such as cyberbullying or grooming can discourage people – particularly children – from using the internet.

User fears about online criminality and identity theft act as further blockers to uptake of digital services and erode trust in digital services.

Just last week there were reports of Australians paying thousands of dollars to unlock a ‘ransomware’ virus called Cryptolocker, which would hold their personal data hostage until they paid a sum to regain access to their computers.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s Scamwatch website reports that ransomware schemes have already cost Australians more than $376,000 from January to July this year.

But perhaps the biggest threat to governments capturing the full potential of online service delivery is governments themselves!

A report last year by Boston Consulting Group titled ‘Digital Government: Turning Rhetoric Into Reality’ summarised government progress as:

“Getting better – but still plenty of room for improvement: that’s the current assessment by everyday users of their governments’ efforts to deliver online services… Many citizens – accustomed to innovation in such sectors as retailing, media, and financial services – wish their Governments would get on with it.”[4]

The Commission of Audit, which reported in 2014, noted that as recently as 2012, 50 percent of the services provided by the Department of Human Services were not conducted online. The ATO was still sending out 10 million notices a year in hardcopy.

In many areas there has been solid progress. For example, myGov provides a central account linked to the Taxation Office, Medicare, Centrelink, Child Support, the Department of Health, the Department of Veterans’ Affairs and the National Disability Insurance Agency services. The site now has more than 7.5 million accounts registered.

Other areas of progress have been visas – with many visa types now processed electronically – and electronic cargo manifests.

But there is much yet to be done, and Australians are clamouring for more. Recent research indicates that over 80 per cent of Australians expect to be able to deal with government online.[5]

The slow pace of change within Government can be a blocker to greater uptake of service delivery online.

In the private sector, the uptake of digital technologies has been heavily driven by disruptive new entrants using new technologies.  Encylopedia Britannica did not adopt a digital model; it was disrupted by Wikipedia.  Fairfax tried to hold onto the rivers of gold in classified advertising; it was disrupted by new players with digital models such as Seek and RealEstate.com.au.

The problem with governments is that they are a monopoly. There is no way for a disruptive new entrant to come in and change the way the government industry operates.

That means we have to disrupt ourselves!

The Abbott Government’s plan to address these issues

That brings me then to the agenda the Abbott Government is pursuing – to capture the potential of digital technology, and to address some of the key blockers to the true potential of that technology.

Let me turn firstly to our work to address two key blockers: threats to our cybersecurity and to the online safety of users.

A major milestone in strengthening our cyber security resources was the opening the Australian Cyber Security Centre in November 2014.

The Centre houses experts from six government agencies including the Australian Federal Police, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, Australian Signals Directorate, Defence Intelligence Organisation, Australian Crime Commission, the national computer emergency response team (CERT).

At the opening of the Centre, the Prime Minister announced that the Australian Government will review Australia’s cyber-security strategy to better protect Australia’s networks from cyber-attacks[6]. The Cyber Security Review team has spoken to over 180 large and small organisations across Australia and overseas and is due to deliver its report to government in coming months.

The Australian Cyber Security Centre released its first unclassified cyber security threat report late last month, which said the cyber threat to Australian organisations is “undeniable, unrelenting and continues to grow.”[7]

The report put the cost of cybercrime in Australia at over $1 billion a year, finding that cyber incidents reported by Australian governments and business had more than tripled in the last three years.[8]

Additionally, the Prime Minister chaired a Cyber Security Summit in July, hosted by the Business Council of Australia and bringing together a group of CEOs and Chairmen to discuss how business and government can work together to address cyber threats.

Similarly we have taken substantial steps to enhance online safety for children.

Earlier this year the Enhancing Online Safety for Children Act passed through Parliament, and on 1 July this year the office of the Children’s eSafety Commissioner formally commenced operation.

The office has now established an effective complaints system, backed by legislation, to get harmful cyberbullying material down fast from large social media services.

Online safety expert and former AFP officer Alastair MacGibbon has been appointed to the role of Commissioner, and he will speak at this event later today.

Tacking the blockers is one thing – but at the same time we need to use new digital technologies to transform the way that government delivers services.

Recently we announced the creation of the Digital Transformation Office (DTO) which reports to Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

The DTO will be an executive agency in the Communications portfolio; it will comprise a small team of developers, designers, researchers and content specialists working across government to develop and coordinate the delivery of digital services.

It is designed to address the reality that some government agencies have made good progress in digitising services that could once only be accessed over the counter or over the phone – but the level of progress from one agency to another is inconsistent.

The DTO will have a very strong focus on end-user needs in developing digital services.

By designing digital services that are consistent and simple to use, fewer people will need to come into a shopfront or make a phone call.

As Minister Turnbull recently said about the work of the DTO:

This is going to ensure that government services are vastly more compelling, vastly more attractive to citizens, and of course it will save them time and money.

State governments have also made promising moves to online service delivery. To renew your car’s registration, you would once have had to travel to the local motor registry, taken a number, waited in line, filled in paper-based forms and completed a payment in-person at a counter.

It was a time-consuming and often frustrating experience for customers, and it is no surprise that people have embraced online registration renewals offered by the NSW Government.

The DTO will also work closely with State and Territory Governments to identify opportunities for collaboration, including ways to make better use of a common digital identity or online credential across different tiers of government, between MyGov federally and state-level online service portals.

To improve the experience for users interacting on both between state and federal service portals, the DTOP will make access to a common digital identity available to all state, territory and local governments at no charge, other than any associated on-boarding costs.

Paul Shetler has now commenced work as CEO of the Digital Transformation Office, and early priorities for the office include establishing this single digital identity and the development of a digital service standard to give a consistent experience across government agencies.

Speaking about his new role, Shetler said that Australia offered “the best opportunity in digital across the world” because the DTO has been positioned to work with and work across all tiers of government.[9]

He said, “We have an opportunity to actually provide digital government as government, not digital government as state government or municipal government or this agency or that agency.”

Shetler sees the DTO’s primary role as “focussing relentlessly on the needs of the actual users,” saying that government online service delivery projects “tend to fail because the government is thinking about its own needs, rather than the needs of the people who use it.”

Looking at the various siloed departmental projects across government, Shetler says the DTO’s job “is to clean that up, make them simpler, more humane, more effective, and at the end of the day, also cheaper.”

Conclusion

Let me conclude with the observation that we need to put our concerns about online safety and security into context.

The internet delivers marvellous social and economic benefits – just as the motor car does.

But it also brings with it some dangers and risks – just as the motor car does.

On a net basis society is vastly better off for having this new technology.

We do need to have a proper focus on the risks and dangers – and take measures to address them.  That is where the products of Intel Security are so important.

It is equally important though to leverage this new technology to capture the maximum benefits – and that is true in government service delivery as it is in so many other areas.

The Abbott Government has an ambitious agenda in these areas – and I thank you for the opportunity to discuss it with you today.

[1]http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/[email protected]/7d12b0f6763c78caca257061001cc588/1a0ecc988f5f1d50ca2570eb008398cd!OpenDocument

[2] Deloitte Access Economics report, ‘Digital government transformation’ p23

[3] Sensis e-Business Report 2015 p7

[4] BCG Report Digital Government: Turning Rhetoric Into Reality, 2014 p3

[5] ACMA’s Communications Report (2012-13), p. 124

[6] http://www.pm.gov.au/media/2014-11-27/cyber-security-review-0

[7] https://www.acsc.gov.au/publications/2015_02_ACSC_Media_Release_Threat_Report_2015.pdf

[8] https://www.acsc.gov.au/publications/ACSC_Threat_Report_2015.pdf p10

[9] Interview with Malcolm Turnbull, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0FFgzDj1S0