KRG's interactions between agencies will be paperless by 2023: Top IT official

“We will make sure that the interaction between government entities will be paperless."
Head of KRG Department of Information Technology Hiwa Afandi briefs reporters, Oct 19, 2022 (Photo: Wladimir van Wilgenburg/Kurdistan 24)
Head of KRG Department of Information Technology Hiwa Afandi briefs reporters, Oct 19, 2022 (Photo: Wladimir van Wilgenburg/Kurdistan 24)

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The Head of the KRG Department of Information Technology Hiwa Afandi told reporters on Wednesday that the interaction between government entities will be paperless by 2023 in a press conference on the new KRG’s Digital Transformation Strategy.

Answering Kurdistan 24's questions, Afandi said that he believes that by 2023, “we will make sure that the interaction between government entities will be paperless and most of the processes inside of those entities depending on the complexity of the business process they manage, will be paperless.”

Read More: PM Barzani announces KRG Digital Transformation Strategy

Paperless future

“So going paperless is something that we think is within our reach is not that far fetched and in 2023, I believe we can reach that goal especially, because I can also give you the good news that there will be a digital signature law to go to the parliament soon and with by having the digital signature law in place we no longer need to print paper and scan paper,” he said.

He said this would mean that at the end of each business process, the minister or whoever's responsible for signing that document “can sign (it) digitally, and it'll automatically go to the mailbox of the upstream ministry or whatever other entities that want to communicate.”

Cyber security

Moreover, he said that the government will also protect private data against hackers or theft.

“One of the core strategic activities of our strategy is literally cybersecurity and data privacy. We do respect the best practices. We do embed the best practices in terms of security and security guidelines into our systems. They are part of our core strategic activities,” he added.

He added that the KRG also protects their services on multiple levels. “When we talk about security, we talk basically about two things: data and the availability of systems by the data centers that we are running are already equipped with the latest network gears that protects against malicious activities such as distributed denial of service attacks.” 

Read More: KRG ninth cabinet the most ‘digitally progressive’: Top IT official 

“The data centers that we are running are already equipped with the latest network gears that protects against malicious activities such as distributed denial of service attacks. When it comes to data privacy, we make sure that the data is encrypted and we use a central authentication system for login,” he added. 

Ethical hackers

He underlined that the KRG like any other government rely on the best standards and the latest security guidelines according to the book.

“Nevertheless, it is always a fight between the good and bad people. So we make sure that in the department we have ethical hackers who help us find vulnerabilities.

PM support

Moreover, in a tweet on the new digital transformation strategy, Afandi also said that "without commitment from top leadership (it) will stay ink on paper."

"Most significant takeaway from todays event that Prime Minister Masrour Barzani not only fully supports but actively leads the #digitaltransformation agenda."