• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Avinash Meetoo

Avinash Meetoo

Let us build a Smart Mauritius together

  • Home
  • About
  • Curriculum Vitae

Archives for January 2020

Computer and Information Security are key to the Digital Transformation of Mauritius

18 January 2020 By Avinash Meetoo 4 Comments

On Thursday 16 January 2020, I did a presentation on the “Privacy Aspects of ICT Projects” during a conference organised by the Data Protection Office of the Ministry of Technology, Communication and Innovation. A few days prior to the conference, while I was reflecting on what I was going to say, I had an intuition: Mauritius will have to undergo a profound digital transformation at all levels: government, companies, schools and individuals, if we want to attain Vision 2030.

This is why I decided to start my presentation by explaining to the audience what Vision 2030 means. I am always quite amazed, during the various talks I make, that only a few people know about this vision of the Government which was first mentioned by the then Prime Minister on 22 August 2015. Today, Vision 2030, which is about making Mauritius an inclusive high-income country well before 2030, is what dictates the various strategies and actions being done by Government.

For me, the best way to be a high-income country and thus reach the status of Smart Mauritius is by our business entities, the conglomerates but also the SMEs including startups, getting more revenue. Given the limited size of the Mauritian market, this needs to be done through the development of new products and new services for new markets (especially the African market). This is why Government is investing massively in Smart Infrastructure, Smart Mobility and Smart Education, etc.

Now, to create new products and new services (in any field) and conquer new markets, one has to use technology to the full whether one requires a tried-and-trusted technology like Linux or the latest fashionable thing such as Artificial Intelligence.

A lot of organisations have realised that technology in 2020 is about software. Software is eating the world after all. Our organisation, be it in Government or our companies, will have to either implement or develop software. It’s no wonder that 2/3 of the job offers on the LinkedIn website in 2018 were for software engineers (15% for IT people and 15% for data science people).

Now, the software needs to be trusted by all users, especially the ones giving their personal data. Therefore, making sure that the software respects the requirement of the Mauritian Data Protection Act or the European General Data Protection Regulations is key for the organisation to be trusted. Privacy has become so important that an organisation which acquires a reputation of not protecting the data of its clients or users is essentially moribund…

How can we implement or develop software which collects and processes personal data (as provided by users and clients) and which offers all guarantees that the privacy of the individual is going to be protected? This is quite a challenge and two technical avenues can be explored: computer security and information security.

Computer security is about the hardware and software aspects: making sure that the principle of security by design is followed from the very beginning (i.e. users only have to have access to the subset of data which they really require and this can be done through the principle of least privilege and proper access control). Then, security measures such as two-factor authentication, encryption, firewalls and intrusion detection mechanisms can be used to secure the infrastructure further. I am quite confident that using something like the Linux operating system for deployment is a great idea (ask Google, Amazon and Facebook!). Interestingly, the last time I used Windows for anything serious was around 2006, 14 years ago. Since then, I’ve been on Linux and macOS and I’m very happy. Of course, it is also important to train users to identify threats and to respond correctly when there is an incident.

I then spoke about information security which, interestingly, is more about the most vulnerable point in IT, the human. The best way to protect the information within an organisation is through the establishment of a good security policy (which needs to be fully understood and followed to the letter by all). It is also important to have physical security for the people and the equipment. This can be a challenge because people move. Laptops and smartphones today contain valuable information, and being so easy to steal, it is important to have a proper asset management system for business continuity. Of course, data needs to be protected (backups, mirroring, etc.) as well as the network.

Underlying everything is making sure that all layers, including all software, respect the requirements of laws such as our own Data Protection Act which mandates that users giving their data can also modify or erase the data afterwards. The law also mandates that the user be informed whenever his data is being collected so that he can give his consent or not. This is quite a challenge from a software development point of view.

Adhering to everything in computer security and in information security is quite difficult, costly and can be a lengthy process. But the reward is more trust and this is only way to get more business and, hence, more income and profit.

As I had been given 20 minutes for the presentation, I could not go into details in everything. I was telling a friend, after the presentation, that, if I was still at Knowledge Seven, I would have maybe created a 30 hour long training on this important topic.

By the way, I didn’t reinvent the wheel. A lot of my presentation was based on what I read online, most notably on Wikipedia which I love.

Thanks to everyone who came to the presentation and I hope you learned a few things. I definitely did while preparing it and doing it. Thanks to @yurit0s for the photo where I am visible.

Filed Under: Computing, Education, Future, News, Science, Society, Technology

Primary Sidebar

Search

I am proud of

My family
My company
My music
My photos

I am active on

Facebook
FB Page
Twitter
LinkedIn
Reddit
Hacker News
Stack Overflow
GitHub
Wikipedia
YouTube
IMDB
Last.fm

All posts

  • April 2025 (1)
  • March 2025 (1)
  • February 2025 (2)
  • January 2025 (4)
  • December 2024 (4)
  • November 2024 (2)
  • October 2024 (1)
  • September 2024 (4)
  • July 2024 (1)
  • June 2024 (1)
  • May 2024 (4)
  • March 2024 (1)
  • February 2024 (1)
  • January 2024 (1)
  • December 2023 (2)
  • November 2023 (2)
  • October 2023 (2)
  • August 2023 (2)
  • July 2023 (3)
  • June 2023 (3)
  • May 2023 (4)
  • April 2023 (1)
  • March 2023 (3)
  • January 2023 (1)
  • December 2022 (1)
  • November 2022 (5)
  • September 2022 (2)
  • June 2022 (2)
  • May 2022 (1)
  • April 2022 (1)
  • January 2022 (3)
  • November 2021 (1)
  • September 2021 (1)
  • June 2021 (3)
  • April 2021 (1)
  • February 2021 (1)
  • January 2021 (2)
  • November 2020 (1)
  • October 2020 (1)
  • September 2020 (1)
  • August 2020 (1)
  • May 2020 (1)
  • April 2020 (3)
  • March 2020 (4)
  • January 2020 (1)
  • July 2019 (1)
  • June 2019 (1)
  • April 2019 (2)
  • January 2019 (1)
  • December 2018 (3)
  • November 2018 (1)
  • September 2018 (1)
  • August 2018 (1)
  • April 2018 (1)
  • December 2017 (1)
  • November 2017 (1)
  • October 2017 (1)
  • August 2017 (1)
  • July 2017 (1)
  • May 2017 (1)
  • March 2017 (1)
  • February 2017 (1)
  • August 2016 (1)
  • July 2016 (1)
  • June 2016 (3)
  • April 2016 (3)
  • March 2016 (3)
  • February 2016 (1)
  • December 2015 (1)
  • November 2015 (1)
  • October 2015 (1)
  • August 2015 (5)
  • June 2015 (1)
  • September 2013 (2)

Copyright © 2025 by Avinash Meetoo · Shared under an Attribution 4.0 International Creative Commons license · Log in