Malta’s e-government programme achieves high security standard

The Malta Information Technology Agency (MITA) e-government programme recently acquired ISO 27001 certification, the international accredita-tion for security compliance. Re-certification to the ISO 9001 quality standard was also achieved.

These standards are deemed vital to ensure that Malta has the best systems in place to allow the government’s customer: the citizens and businesses, to access public services with the greatest level of security, MITA said in a statement.

MITA was first accredited with the ISO 9001 standard in January 1999 and by 2003 every process within the organisation was certified with this quality benchmark.

The e-government programme has been accredited with the ISO 9001 quality standard since its inclusion as part of MITA responsibilities in 2008.

MITA’s core services were accredited to the ISO 27001 standard in October 2010 and the agency said it remains committed to widen the scope of this certification to embrace other areas of business. The accreditation of the e-government programme is a result of an extension of scope of certification.

Although many commentators have different interpretations of e-government and different countries have adopted different approaches, the aim remains the same.

The goal is to deliver government services though an online presence; personalised for the customers’ needs rather than the convenience of public entities. This places the customer at the beating heart of the process which is what MITA strives to achieve in building a platform for the delivery of excellent e-government services.

Malta’s list of online services is constantly growing to cover a variety of services where clients traditionally had to physically present themselves at a government office. e-Government turns this situation on its head by allowing clients to apply for services at their own convenience without any restrictions to office hours. Moreover, the new platform is designed to allow future services to be accessible from one online port of call, from computers or mobile devices, and to be able to track the progress while the application is being pro­cessed. This is vital in Malta’s busy and increasingly mobile working environment and re­duces the barriers for those with reduced mobility, the agency concluded.

.timesofmalta.com