Friday, August 29, 2003

ITU Newslog ITU is now publishing a radio-supported newslog that includes categories on egovernment, open source, grid networks, and a variety of other interesting topics.  Robert Shaw is involved in supporting this 2:59:56 PM    comment []

US Visit and Wired in Korea Counterterrorismtraining.gov is a joint training portal that is supported primarily by the Department of Justice. The Utah Academic Library Consortium is now offering 24x7 support for live chat with reference librarians. The British government has plans to pilot the use of biometrics in the issuance of passports.  Privacy advocates are urging people to boycott the project.  The US Dept. of Homeland Security announced the development of a similar system back on April 29th.  The system, entitle US Visit or U.S. Visitor and Immigrant Status Indication Technology system  is designed to make entering the U.S. easier for legitimate tourists, students and business travelers, while making it more difficult to enter the U.S. illegally through the implementation of biometrically authenticated documents.  There was a lot of talk about this system at the Western CIO Summit.  The first phase of this system is expected to be in place by the end of the year.  US Visit will replace any remaining vestiges of the NSEERS program. US Visit Fact Sheet A related service from the Bureau of Citizen and Immigration Services allows you to subscribe to any of their notifications. Our UWIN fair at Park City went quite well and was an excellent forum for sharing ideas on new law enforcement technology, particularly wireless communications.  We will soon release the new UWIN website.  Here's some photos of yesterday's event: In South Korea, over two-thirds of households now have broadband access.  Amazing.  Wired writes about the impact on citizens: First, they point to a shift in the way citizens interact with government, from one of long lines and grouchy clerks to one of point-and-click. South Korean businesses have saved big bucks by giving customers and employees direct, user-friendly access to their databases. They've cut out whole categories of work in which people filled-out forms by hand, then others typed the information into databases. These same efficiencies are attainable in citizens' dealings with their governments - if enough of the population has high-speed access to justify creating such streamlined, Web-based systems. In Korea, enough people do. 11:53:35 AM    comment []

© Copyright 2003 David Fletcher.