The Government's e-envoy Alex Allan is spearheading the online revolution for Tony Blair and has come out with a blitz of announcements and plans in recent weeks. BT was recently awarded the contract to develop a personal portal for people to access UK Online, as the Government project has been dubbed. As well as a home page for government sites, people will be able to file their tax returns over the Net, car owners will be able to order their tax disc online while more National Health services will also be made available on the Net. But the entire project is at risk because of weak links in the chain, with hundreds of private-sector security consultants grappling with the problems. While central government security is of a high standard, the process suffers from the weakest link in the chain - in this case local authorities.
Local government has some of the most sensitive data to protect.
Among potential threats identified by the Cabinet Office are hacker attacks, fraudsters, attacks by insiders, often the work of disgruntled employees, and theft of data or money.