Public Sector Workers To Be Blocked From Using Private Emails For Work

Public sector workers will be barred from using private emails for official work from next year.

The official platform they are expected to use for government emails will be overseen by the National Information Technology Agency.

Speaking in Accra, the Minister of Communication and Digitalisation, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, urged government agencies to liaise with the agency to make sure they are placed on the platform.

Mrs. Owusu-Ekuful said this policy will ensure the continuity of state information and mitigate instances of exposing state information to cyberattacks.

She charged the public sector Chief Executives to tighten structures to protect government information in the discharge of duties and noted that the goal is to ensure “that official information stays within the official domain.”

“In other countries, you could lose your job for not using your official email because it compromises the security of the entire system. It destroys institutional memory. It makes government information available everywhere in the world.”

Mrs. Owusu-Ekuful is also concerned that government business could fall into the wrong hands.

“Somebody somewhere is using that information that has been provided on those supposedly free platforms and doing all kinds of things with our data which we don’t know about.”

The minister was speaking at the technology Breakfast meeting organized to sensitize Public Chief Executives on leveraging on government’s digitalisation drive.