2005 C.I.P.A. Winners

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Public Works and Government Services Canada

Secure Channel

The Government of Canada has a goal to provide Canadians with access to its services any time, anywhere. The vision underlying this goal was set out in 1999, when the government declared its intention to become the most connected government to its citizens in the world.

Such a vision, however, required a robust technological infrastructure. A system had to be built to provide citizens and businesses with secure, private and high-speed access to federal government online services, and to provide an environment that enables and encourages departments to integrate with federated common services.

That system is now in place. It is called the Secure Channel, and has been built by an initiative of historic proportions led by Public Works and Government Services Canada (PWGSC).

Challenge

Secure Channel was more than an IT project. It had to enable a transformation of the Canadian government - not only in how it operates, but in how it thinks of itself. The project leader, Michael de Rosenroll, director general of the Strategic Infrastructure Services Sector of PWGSC's Information Technology Services Branch, says the project took a "Big Bang" approach to achieving the government's vision.

"The government is moving to an enterprise model," de Rosenroll says. "It's a new way of doing business, more efficient and less labour-intensive.

"Rather than continue to exist as 130 independent agencies and departments, the government is now launching shared- and common-service initiatives -- things like common travel, online procurement, human-resources and financial systems. All such common systems depend on Secure Channel to operate because it ties them all together and provides access and authentication services."

From its inception shortly after the Speech from the Throne in 1999, Secure Channel was a project unmatched in size and scope. As of March 2005, $414 million had been spent on Secure Channel and its myriad sub-projects, including development and the first six months of operational costs.

The number of employees, full- and part-time, within the government who have contributed to the project is about 200, and the private-sector consortium working in partnership with PWGSC has involved about 300 people, including many of Canada's leading IT strategists.

Significant contributors to the development of Secure Channel have included Treasury Board Secretariat and the Communications Security Establishment, as well as client departments such as Human Resources and Skills Development Canada and the Canada Revenue Agency.

The sheer magnitude and complexity of the project meant that it took two to three years for the government and the private-sector consortium led by Bell Canada to jointly plan their strategy and approach, de Rosenroll says.

"We had to learn how to work in a partnership arrangement with the private sector, when we didn't know what each other didn't know. We had to learn about each others' capabilities and how they came together.

"Everybody involved had to understand the policy issues - security, privacy, accessibility, a common look and feel - underlying the solution, and all of the departments and agencies had to harmonize their internal architecture with the common middleware."

Objectives

The Secure Channel's key objectives were to:

1. Ensure security for the government, businesses and citizens;
2. Ensure privacy of information that is collected by government or presented to citizens or businesses;
3. Support the desire to provide businesses and citizens with simplifed access to all government services with a view to achieving a single window to government;
4. Maximize interoperability among departments, programs and services;
5. Develop an enterprise approach by using common services;
6. Ensure the timely availability of the service delivery channel to meet the expectations of program users and suppliers;
7. Ensure that the quantifiable benefits justify the costs.

Solution

Secure Channel is a portfolio of services built on a common infrastructure that provides authentication, communication and security services for Government of Canada departments and programs. It authenticates individuals and businesses by means of a digital certificate, called an epass, which ensures that all transactions between the individual and the government program are encrypted and securely communicated.

Almost one million epasses have been issued to the public. Seventy per cent of departments that have access to the Internet go through Secure Channel to get their Internet services. As of July 2005, 26 programs across 14 government departments were using Secure Channel's authentication services. Examples include:

• My Account -- My Account on Secure Channel offers Canadians secure Internet access to a wide range of tax-related applications from Canada Revenue Agency.
• ROE Web -- Each year, Canadian employers create eight million multiple-part Record of Employment (ROE) forms at considerable expense. ROE Web consists of applications that enable employers to create, submit and print ROEs via the Internet, secured by epass technology.
• Passport On-Line -- An interactive application guides a citizen through all sections of the passport application form, protected by the use of an epass.
• OWNERS application -- Environment Canada has epass-enabled its OWNERS application (One Window Network Environmental Reporting application), enabling private-sector companies to securely submit reports on their status with respect to environmental regulations.

The government's goal is that, within about five years, all departments and agencies that require authentication services will obtain them uniformly through Secure Channel.

Innovative Use of Technology

The Secure Channel project has placed Canada among the forefront of countries attempting to unify their governments and provide seamless service delivery to citizens any time, anywhere.

De Rosenroll says, "The privacy architecture we have devised is, as far as we know, unique to Canada and is being closely studied by other countries."

A 2005 CIPA Winner!

For its exceptional and innovative application of information technology to solve real-world business problems and bring greater benefit to all its stakeholders, Public Works and Government Services Canada has been awarded a Silver Award of Excellence from the 2005 Canadian Information Productivity Awards in the Customer Care Not For Profit category.

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