By our example, we can demonstrate its benefits and encourage our clients and suppliers to adopt a way of doing business that will maintain and enhance their global competitiveness. As you may know, in May, the federal government set a target to make electronic commerce its preferred means of doing business internally and with its external clients by 1998. Meeting that deadline will be a big challenge. But we felt that setting such a target was the best way for us to galvanize action. It is not enough, however, for us to change our laws and lead by example.
People have to be convinced that electronic commerce is secure, reliable, and above all, private.
This is an area in which all governments can work together. We need security infrastructures to protect our own operations. These should be interoperable, with each other and with private sector initiatives, if we are to have seamless but secure electronic commerce. Many of our citizens have real reservations about entrusting their personal and financial information to unknown people for storage in unknown places. They read stories about how such information is routinely sold to unauthorized users and about hackers who can break into even well-secured systems.