The cost of a cloud
Being locked in to one vendor runs the risk of rising costs – and this has caught out the Environmental Protection Authority.
The EPA has been in deficit since 2017, and “the situation has worsened as we, along with all of government, have transitioned from historic, one-off, capital-based, information technology infrastructure to cloud-based solutions, requiring ongoing software-as-a-service expenditure”, it warned its new Minister recently.
Its annual cloud costs had risen from $2.1m in 2018 to $3.38m, the EPA told RNZ.
The cloud costs for police are not clear, but the force now has 20 systems in the cloud.
Since first signing with evidence.com/Axon in 2017, police have added in their firearms information system, vehicle number-plate identification system that can track cars, and the ‘Family Safety System’, among a range of contracts with a wide variety of tech firms.
The OIA documents showed police have been learning as they go, adding in tighter conditions around sensitive data.
For their 21st cloud deal – handling daily data from officers on the job – the standard protections were not good enough.
Tender winner Virginia-based firm Appian had to promise special measures, in order to cut down the risks from insider-tampering, and from jurisdictional risk – the US has laws that allow it to seize data held by US firms – from “high” to a “medium” level.
“New Zealand Police will be provided with an additional third approval layer,” Appian told police, in risk mitigation papers in October.