ISLAMABAD: In a major move towards digital sovereignty, the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication of Pakistan has decided to start the registration process of cloud service providers on Monday under the Pakistan Cloud First Policy, which is aimed at ensuring that the vital data of the state resides only in cloud servers within Pakistan.
Pakistan IT Minister Shaza Fatima has officially announced that there have been six applicants so far, who have applied for CSP accreditation after the initiation of the Pakistan Cloud First Policy registration process. In order to be accredited, each application goes through a very stringent security clearance process, and it is mandatory to get audited by a third party registered within Pakistan Computer Emergency Response Team.
Real Requirements for Cloud Service Providers under the Cloud Policy
According to the policy, cloud service providers seeking to provide their services within the public sector need to fulfill rigorous accreditation requirements. These include requirements concerning security, quality standards, and external audits. The aim of the requirements is to bar low-quality providers from operating in the government cloud environment.
“The policy, for the very first time, will make sure that Pakistan’s crucial data remains on servers that are actually based in the country itself, thus making sure that its national data falls under Pakistan’s jurisdiction,” stated Minister Fatima in her interaction with Dawn. Just this one provision regarding the physical server in Pakistan solves a core problem in all previous versions of Pakistan’s digital policies.
Public Sector Organizations Are Required to Use Cloud Services
In addition to registering the service providers, the policy of “Cloud First” for Pakistan requires cloud services from all the organizations belonging to the public sector. All departments of both provincial and federal tiers need to use the services provided by cloud computing for any future IT-based project, instead of creating their own costly data centers.
The mandate marks a paradigm shift in the procurement and management of digital infrastructures within the government of Pakistan. The departments which have been traditionally building and managing their own information technology infrastructures need to move to a shared cloud model that will bring them benefits in terms of security along with economic advantages.
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Cloud Office Set Up, Provinces Getting In Line
As part of the management of the process, the Ministry of IT has set up a Cloud Office that will be tasked with ensuring the adoption of cloud computing by the government in addition to the CSP accreditation across the country. Every province is expected to create a Cloud Acquisition Office to facilitate cloud computing at provincial level.
According to Minister Fatima, the provinces have already adopted their own version of the Pakistan Cloud First policy that complements the national-level policy – an approach that ensures coordination at the national level and eliminates the provincial-level IT procurement that used to complicate the efforts made by Pakistan in terms of e-governance. The IT Secretary will chair the board responsible for the implementation of the said policy.
Economic Incentives for Foreign Exchange Savings
Other than offering security and governance incentives, there is an important economic incentive attached to Pakistan’s Cloud First policy as well. Currently, Pakistan invests heavily in foreign exchange in order to purchase information technology services provided by international cloud service providers. Local cloud facilities can prevent all such investments in foreign exchange.
The ministry report also confirmed that switching to local cloud companies would ensure that these monies remain within the country and would not result in any foreign exchange leakage – a fact that helps achieve Pakistan’s ultimate goal of saving its foreign exchange resources.
A high-level official of MOIT further highlighted that by having a CSP registration process, the government will be able to keep an eye on the investments being made in cloud computing in Pakistan. It will help the government avoid making any wastage of the national resources through over-investment in the sector.
