The 2021 annual meeting of the International Council for Information Technology in Government Administration (ICA) was hosted as a virtual conference from September 29-30 under the theme The New Normal – A radical leap to digital, one giant step for digital society. Deputy Director Hsiao Nai-Yi represented this center at this year’s (55th) annual meeting; this is the center’s 12th time participating in ICA. (ICA 55th Conference Programme)
This year’s annual event saw representatives from various nations share how digital technologies were applied to enhance protective measures against the pandemic. The first keynote “The New Tribes – Growing voice and power of self-organising communities” featured 3 senior managers such as a CIO, CTO, and CEO discussed case studies such as putting out forest fires, managing the pandemic, and vaccine administration to explore the contributions of digital technologies and infrastructure. Additionally, they discussed the importance of applying service design and agile project management necessary for software/hardware in digital technologies as well as the importance of a CIO Strategy Council with both central and local governments. As such, the public’s evaluation of crisis cases during the pandemic is subject to the impact of experiences in digital software and processes.
It is worth noting that while representatives from various nations have stated that the use of digital technologies in crisis scenarios can improve public benefit, there is potential harm to personal privacy. Thus, government authorities must put more considerations into how to properly deploy, use, track, and manage digital technologies. In keynotes 4 “Challenges of managing digital identities and personal data; ownership of data and self-sovereign identities” and 5 “How do we ensure that data privacy and security is protected”, an expert from Oxford University and representatives from Belgium and Australia shared how to maintain digital sovereignty (especially the privacy of personal medical and healthcare data) in transnational agreements and how domestic laws must make timely adjustments in order to manage crises while simultaneously gathering and appropriately utilizing personal data and protecting personal privacy.
Director Adam Chien of the Department of Cyber Security, Executive Yuan was invited to speak in keynote 5 “How do we ensure that data privacy and security is protect”. He introduced our nation’s Personal Data Protection Act, Cybersecurity Act, inter-governmental agency data exchange platform T-Road, autonomous data management and innovative services platform MyData, and the real-name registration system implemented during the pandemic. Director Chien’s sharing of our nation’s experiences spurred representatives from many nations to engage in lively discussions on the remote conference’s bulletin board.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the annual ICA event has been hosted as an online conference for 2 consecutive years. However, the diversity of cases and experience sharing from various nations has greatly benefited participants. We believe that the sharing of experiences with other nations and the relationships maintained during the pandemic will become the New Normal in a post pandemic world and the foundation for the continuous pursuit of digitalization and digital transformations. Issues such as remote work and telemedicine will undoubtedly become the new norm we must address in future digital governance.