Adopting the government’s Cloud First Policy, the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) ensures that the risks and vulnerabilities associated with using cloud vendors to store and process data are addressed using appropriate controls and security protocols.
“All data created, collected, organized, modified, retrieved, used, consolidated, sourced from, or owned by the Philippine government, including all its agencies and instrumentalities, or by any national of the Philippines or any entity that has links to the Philippines, which are in the cloud, regardless of location, shall be governed by Philippine laws, policies, rules, and regulations,” said Maria Victoria Castro, Director IV, National ICT Planning, Policy and Standards Bureau, DICT, during the 1st Philippine CTO Summit: Cloud 4.0 dubbed “Moving from Public Clouds to In-Country Clouds” held April 27 in Makati City.
This provision was outlined in DICT Department Circular No. 010, Section 2020, which amended the country’s Cloud First Policy, as prescribed in DICT Department Circular No. 2017-002 issued in 2017.
The government’s Cloud First Policy encourages the use of cloud computing solutions as a primary component of information infrastructure planning and procurement. It encompasses the national government’s executive departments, bureaus, offices, agencies, and instrumentalities, including GOCCs and subsidiaries, SUCs, and LGUs. Castro encouraged Congress, the judiciary, constitutional commissions, and the Office of the Ombudsman to adopt the Cloud First Policy.
The DICT says the provisions comply with current local and international security standards for their industry and all relevant Philippine laws, emphasizing the importance of adopting the government’s Cloud First Policy.
According to the DICT Circular, the Philippine government, its agencies, and instrumentalities must retain full control and ownership of their data. No government data shall be transferred, stored, or processed in cloud infrastructure unless done following the provisions of the Circular and other relevant laws, policies, rules, regulations, and issuances.
DICT provides cloud infrastructure access and support services to government agencies based on their needs.
“Customers can now overcome and simplify their data engineering challenges as they work to derive insight from big data. By tapping on the in-country cloud platform of CTO and CloudSigma and their services, customers can benefit from the HPE Ezmeral Data Fabric solution.” said Regino Joel B. Josol Client Architect at Hewlett Packard Enterprise during my ambush interview with him.
Cloud computing is a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g. networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction; aimed at lowering the cost (acquisition and operation) of government ICT by eliminating hardware and system duplication and database fragmentation.
Cloud computing encourages inter-agency collaboration for increased efficiency, better citizen online services, faster service deployment, operational continuity and business recovery, and greater budget control.
