Dr. Dennis Jennings:

If one is to implement a system that will allow data to be accessed - I wish to insist on using data access, not data sharing - between Departments, one must create an infrastructure that will allow anybody in a Department to have access to data in any other Department and put controls in place. A number of matters fall from this automatically, one of which is identity in order that one can identify individuals across the system. The second matter is authorisation; one has to authorise people to access data. The third is authentication to make absolutely sure the authorised person is who they say they are and can access the data, that the individual whose data are being accessed also has that right and that any access is logged in order that the individual who owns the data can find out who has been using their data. These are the components of a system that provides security, privacy and, most importantly, trust. If the system is not based on trust, it will fall apart. If the citizen does not trust the State or public service Departments to handle things properly and procedurally with the appropriate governance procedures, which is demonstrable by the type of infrastructure I am describing, there will be no trust and that will be a disaster. One cannot have part of it. One needs the set to ensure trust. This is not new stuff. Other nations have had such infrastructure in place for many years and built that trust. There is no reason we cannot use those models to build our infrastructure with the same level of trust.