INTER-OPERABILITY OF GOVERNMENT AGENCIES

INTER-OPERABILITY OF GOVERNMENT AGENCIES

Dear Mr. President: Since the time that you have been calling for the digitalization of government processes, I have observed that both National Government Agencies (NGAs) and Local Government Units (LGUs) have been very slow in responding to your instructions. Why has it been difficult for these government units to obey your orders? Is it because the heads of these units do not know what to do? Or is it because they do not have the right people who could implement Information and Communications Technology (ICT) projects? If that is so, why don’t they hire contractors or consultants to do it for them?

As a former Director General of the National Computer Center (NCC is the precursor of the Department of Information and Communications Technology), I think that I might know some of the answers to those questions. But to be able to answer those questions, I must go back to the fact that even before the arrival of digital information and communications technologies, most NGAs and LGUs have not been actively coordinating and cooperating with each other. In other words, they really do not have a history of being “inter-operable”.

From an internal point of view (meaning within the government), NGAs and LGUs must be able to access each other’s ICT systems and networks, for them to be able to claim that they are “inter-operable”. No, I do not mean being able to exchange messages with each other. I mean being able to read each other’s secure databases, but with the proper security access protocols of course. And if the protocols and policies will allow it, they should be able to input data to each other’s databases (meaning be able to write texts and numbers into these). And that means they must be able to sign in or log in to each other’s databases.

From an external point of view (meaning from the perspective of the public), the people should be able to access these government databases via a single sign in or single log in protocol, instead of having to sign in or log in each time that they need to transact with any government agency. That is my definition of being “inter-operable”, and I welcome everyone else to send to me their own definition.

Nowadays, a “single sign on” (SSO) protocol could just simply mean one having one ID that will be honored by all government databases, either internally or externally. But of course, the technology for the ID could vary, such as using Quick Response (QR) codes, Universal Product Codes (UPC codes, or commonly known as barcodes) and Near Field Communications (NFC), among others. Any of these could also be supplemented by biometric technologies such as facial recognition, voice recognition, gait recognition and even eye recognition (retinal method).

Mr. President, depending on the level of technology needed, the government database could use two or more means of authentication, often could two-factor authentication or triple-factor authentication for example. The simplest method that is known to most people is the one-time password (OTP) sent via text or email. For as long as the government could implement any SSO method, then their goals of “inter-operability” could happen as they have been trying to make it happen. IKE SENERES/09-20-2024

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