Mike Williamson<p>"For the second time this week, a computer outage at Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) kiosks caused delays at the Montreal airport."</p><p><a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/gcdigital" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>gcdigital</span></a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/cbsa" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>cbsa</span></a> </p><p><a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/montreal/article/another-outage-at-cbsa-kiosks-at-montreal-airport-causing-delays/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://www.</span><span class="ellipsis">ctvnews.ca/montreal/article/an</span><span class="invisible">other-outage-at-cbsa-kiosks-at-montreal-airport-causing-delays/</span></a></p>
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This Tuesday!
Sam Burton, Senior Policy Advisor at the Canadian Digital Service, talks about her recently released report into collaborations between Canadian governments and civic tech volunteers.
March 4, 7pm: in person and online
guild.host/events/civic...
"Digitize all public-facing government services so they are accessible by web and mobile phone and available behind a unified login system by 2025;"
Here we are in 2025 without digitized public services or a unified login.
ised-isde.canada.caReport from Canada's Economic Strategy Tables: Digital IndustriesReport from Canada's Economic Strategy Tables: The Innovation and Competitiveness Imperative
"The stated rationale for this centralization was to eliminate unnecessary duplication, inconsistency, and costs in systems, processes, policies, contracts, and services across these functions.
The committee understands and accepts this rationale. However, the committee heard on numerous occasions from personnel at various centers that this centralization had actually reduced efficiency, with suggested values of reduction in the 20–30 percent range.
This can be seen as an unintended but significant consequence of the centralization initiative."
#NASA #gcdigital #centralization
https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/27519/nasa-at-a-crossroads-maintaining-workforce-infrastructure-and-technology-preeminence
The National Academies PressNASA at a Crossroads: Maintaining Workforce, Infrastructure, and Technology Preeminence in the Coming DecadesRead online, download a free PDF, or order a copy in print or as an eBook.
"The PBO said that in the four departments it studied, IT services provided by outside contractors cost taxpayers between 22 and 25.7 per cent more than they would have if the services had been provided in-house."
CTVNews · Federal IT contracting cost more than in-house services: PBO reportThe federal government spent more on contracted information technology services in four federal departments in 2022-23 than it would have if the work had been done by public servants, the parliamentary budget officer found in a new analysis.
Continued thread
Using #LLMs to scrape TBS policy documents has done a lot to lower the already low amount of trust I have in LLMs: made up clause numbers, clauses that are rewritten, often with hallucinated additions, skipped sections and partial documents... all mixed with enough correct things to muddy the water.
The Treasury Board's policy suite is conceptually a giant graph structure, but is frustratingly resistant to automated analysis.
Some annoyances:
The policy suite straddles tbs-sct.gc.ca and canada.ca and policies often draw their authorities from material on laws-lois.justice.gc.ca
There is frustratingly little common structure you can rely on. If you think you found a structure, you just need to see a few more policies
Links between policies or to laws rarely link to relevant sections
Only a few policies have an XML data representation, most are available only as HTML, making web scraping the most reliable approach
Markers indicating sections, clauses etc. are not consistent across HTML documents making web scraping extremely annoying
Multiple requirements often occur in a single ("and")
Enabling programmatic analysis of policy would be broadly valuable both inside and outside government.
This should be an #opendata #dataproduct but it seems like these documents are largely treated like marketing material: if it looks OK in the browser it's done.
"As of October 4, 2024, there are a total of 149 AWS services and features that were assessed by the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security (CCCS) under PBHVA assessment criteria. The assessment covers services and features that are available in both the Canada (Central) and Canada West (Calgary) AWS Regions."
Amazon Web Services · AWS completes the CCCS PBHVA assessment with 149 services and features in scope | Amazon Web ServicesWe continue to expand the scope of our assurance programs at Amazon Web Services (AWS) and are pleased to announce the successful completion of our first ever Protected B High Value Assets (PBHVA) assessment with 149 assessed services and features. Completion of this assessment effective October 4, 2024, makes AWS the first cloud service provider […]
"One of these side effects is increased compliance costs. We do not know exactly what it costs for departments and agencies to meet the expectations of watchdogs and political overseers, and to maintain the watchdogs and overseers themselves, and how this cost compares to the benefits of intensified control. It is likely, though, that these compliance costs are substantial." -- @alasdairroberts
a.coAmazon.ca
"rules are a lot more costly than people tend to realize – not just the cost of people who run accountability systems but the time of people who comply with them, who could be doing something more productive instead.
Such costs are particularly onerous for small agencies. No one in the government of Canada knows the full measure of these costs and no one seems to want to."
https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/salgo-canada-public-service-accountable
ottawacitizenSalgo: What if Canada's public service is actually too accountable?Public servants must be held responsible for their work — but they are subjected to rules that paralyze innovation and accomplishment.
Consultations on the Directive on Automated Decision-Making #GC #AI #TBS #OCIO #GcDigital https://wiki.gccollab.ca/Consultations_on_the_4th_Review
wiki.gccollab.caConsultations on the 4th Review - wiki
This piece from @quidampepin is a great read: “State, bureaucracy and power – Reflections of a bureaucrat” https://www.davidpepin.ca/billets/state-power-bureaucracy/ #GCdigital
www.davidpepin.caState, bureaucracy and power - Reflections of a bureaucratThere’s no point in denying it: I’m a bureaucrat.
As a career government worker, I’m part of the machinery of the state, for better or worse. I find the English expression “public servant” elegantly side-steps this reality and focuses on an idealized “public” that we ostensibly serve. The French expression, “fonctionnaire”, is perhaps more honest: I serve a specific function in the state apparatus. Part of my role is enforcing rules and maintaining the bureaucracy. I am, in one word, a bureaucrat.
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"As the agency scrambles internally to deal with so-called threat actors, The Fifth Estate/Radio-Canada investigation has found the public is mostly being kept in the dark about the staggering amounts stolen and the gaping flaws in the agency's ability to detect fraud."
CBC · Tens of thousands of taxpayer accounts hacked as CRA repeatedly paid out millions in bogus refunds
"it remains unknown why the CRA paid out refunds to people using fake addresses or why they didn't detect the fact that fraudsters were using the same bank account to get refunds on behalf of unrelated taxpayers"
youtu.be- YouTubeEnjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.
Continued thread
This is such a good slide. (From Dan Honig at @fwd50.) #fwd50 #GCdigital
"For decades, politicians have loaded the system with controls and watchdogs. Many controls have been proposed in good faith. But no one has looked at the cumulative effect of the entire control regime.
No one has tallied how much it costs for bureaucrats to comply with all these rules, or considered how it affects culture and performance, or calculated whether the costs of compliance exceed the benefits."
A great article from @alasdairroberts
ottawacitizenRoberts: Fixing the federal public service won't happen without an independent reviewA thickening web of controls has weighed down public servants, and the evolution of a separate 'political service' hasn't helped.