UK Government should have used existing secure online data sharing technology

So says Eran Farajun, executive vice president of online data backup and restore software developer Asigra. “This data loss could have been avoided in the first place if, instead of relying on the antiquated system of physically transporting CDs from A to B, the UK government department in question had utilised existing technology, whereby key and authorised personnel have password-protected access to centralised data via a shared –but heavily encrypted – wide area network,” he says. “This would have negated any need to physically transport any data at all, and the highly secure network would provide a risk-free environment to access, share and store sensitive data,” he explains. “Many organisations in the public sector are using advanced technology in terms of backing up data online, rather than using unreliable tapes that may get lost in transit when recovering data. So why aren’t all governmental departments using the same digital processes with the sharing of data? “After this fiasco, the government needs to prove to the world that it is keeping up with the rest of the UK as a leader in the field of technological advancement and make full use of the technology it has already invested in across its entire departmental network.”