A new program is being installed throughout New South Wales which will see public sectors combine and share IT resources to streamline the government’s technological capability.

The ‘cloud policy’ announced this week is the result of a pledge by Premier Barry O’Farrell and former Finance Minister Greg Pearce to allow agencies to share common IT infrastructure where possible; cutting down on redundant systems and hopefully saving money in the state’s annual $2 billion technology spend.

The plan was announced this week by Minister for Finance and Services Andrew Constance, covering “all NSW Government Departments, Statutory Bodies and Shared Service Providers,” but excluding state-owned corporations such as utilities, ports and forests. Those outside the umbrella can be included voluntarily.

There have been concerns in the last few years about the shift to shared IT resources, with some worried about the risks in pooling of sensitive information. The handling of private details is covered by the Privacy and Personal Information Protection Act 1998 and the Health Records and Information Privacy Act 2002.

It appears that under the plan, sensitive information will only be considered to have been breached if somebody does something with it which has not specifically been mandated

The new NSW cloud policy states: “If an agency shares or transfers personal information with a contracted cloud service provider and the cloud service provider simply holds the data and acts according to the instructions of the agency, then disclosure will not be considered to have occurred... if the cloud service provider uses the data provided for its own purposes, this may be unauthorised access, use, modification or disclosure.”

The NSW Government is yet to announce the tangible savings from the shift toward shared IT capabilities.

Announcements related to the new direction of NSW Government IT contain no shortage of techno-buzzwords such as 'streamlined' and 'the cloud'. It is encouraging that the concerns raised reflect a working knowledge of the concept, showing that Australian public servants are considerably more informed than the average American on the subject.

A survey conducted on the public’s perception of cloud services revealed that 51 per cent of Americans believe bad weather can interrupt access, 29 per cent thought ‘the cloud’ referred to actual clouds, and 54 per cent said they did not use any cloud services – though it turned out 95 per cent of those actually did.