[Photo: FILE]

Questions are being raised over whether sensitive government data under the proposed Fiji-Australia Vuvale Union and Ocean of Peace Alliance treaties could eventually be stored in Australia.

The concern was raised before the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence, with questions asked about where data from a proposed cyber unit would be stored and how its security would be guaranteed.

Permanent Secretary for Policing Berenado Daveta says, for now, government information and data are stored at Fiji’s local data centre.

Discussions are underway on whether recovery infrastructure could be placed in Australia to protect government data from cyclones and other natural disasters.

“There is no decision on that as yet. We are still considering options and what would be the best thing to do. If it is going to be housed in Australia, how do we still manage, own and have control over that data centre? That is what we are looking at at the moment. But as of now, everything goes to the data centre here.”

Standing Committee member Penioni Ravunawa questioned how the Ministry of Communication would be able to confirm the security and location of the data storage.

“In your presentation, you mentioned the recovery infrastructure location. You are still looking into that?”

Acting Director for Information Technology and Computing Services Ponijese Bainimoli says a Cabinet directive requires all government data to be stored at the government data centre.

“We are currently working on it in terms of security, working with other government ministries and departments. And also, in terms of disaster recovery, as the PS mentioned, we are currently looking for a permanent one. But for now, we have a disaster recovery site located off-site from the government data centre.”

He says Fiji already has backup systems in place, but work is continuing to find a permanent location for disaster recovery.