Irish Internet Copyright Order Signed Into Law

An Irish ministerial order that allows copyright holders to seek legal injunctions against some Internet service providers was signed into law last week. The law allows plaintiffs seek legal injunctions against Internet service providers that allow access to websites that contain copyrighted material.

The Irish Minister for Research and Innovation, Sean Sherlock, said upon signing the amendment, “I believe that in Ireland we must build on our very substantial achievements in the creative and digital media industry, and become a model of international best practice for innovation in the area.”

Online copyright concerns

The law comes after concern over Internet copyright boomed in 2011. With online media a major growth point, music industry and entertainment industry officials have been pushing for more stringent controls over the use of media online.

The move has encountered a lot of opposition, however, and has been dubbed the “Irish Sopa” in reference to the US Stop Online Piracy act, which was defeated after a robust campaign from major websites and activists. Those who were opposed to the “Irish Sopa” say that it’s a bad move because it doesn’t solve the legal problem of uncertainty that this law is suggested to solve.

Minister Sherlock went on to say that “Ireland is home to some of the world’s most innovative Internet companies, and we are determined to grow our reputation as a location where smart people and smart companies can innovate in this fast-moving area”.

An answer to the Internet copyright issue

There is a large amount of concern over Internet copyright law. Particularly for those who post content online like blogs, articles, white papers and video, there is not much by way of protection or comeback when these kinds of content are stolen, reproduced or plagiarized. Government policy remains murky.

There is now an answer to the online copyright question for organizations. Companies can take advantage of Digiprove’s Autoprotect technology to create a unique digital fingerprint & timestamp and legitimize online content in order to prove its origins, without the need to upload the content (It remains confidential to the owner/author).

www.digiprove.com

Embed Trust, Compliance & Protection in Software & Data

Introduction

Your software whether COTS or Bespoke brings to your client’s or your own organisation the benefits of automation and the flexibility of digital processes & content, these benefits are indirect when you consider the primary drivers are likely to be Improve Financial Performance, Customer or Citizen Service, or carry out tasks that would not be practical to carry out manually.

Software Applications or Information systems are central to the creation and flow of Information in every aspect of business life today, they support every function in the organisation and decision making at every level from the front line or shop floor up to the board room and for external parties.

Your business/organisation is providing these software products and IT solutions to your client’s/end user’s and they are central to their business processes, legal and regulatory compliance. So why is there so much emphasis on printing and signed paper records? The answer is “Trust”. Digital data & content can be easily manipulated accidentally or maliciously even with what would be perceived as good IT security. A professional malicious hacker can circumnavigate most standard security and the use of elaborate security solutions can be very costly and make usability an issue.

How do you bring trust to the digital content your application creates, handles or uses, in a simple cost effective manner? If your software ticks all the boxes below, then you have a compelling proposition, if you don’t tick all the boxes then don’t worry by doing a quick free integration of Digiprove technology or alternatively installing Autoprotect from Digiprove you can secure the trust of any user or 3^rd party in the information your solution provides:

þ Provenance of any digital content can be established (Origin)

þ Digital content can be verified as it is used or at any time on and off line (Tamper evidence)

þ Tamperproof & Auditable logs of content history (Life cycle events)

þ Content does not leave its operating environment (Remains Confidential)

þ Meets Legal and evidential requirements for eDiscovery, Spoilation identification and preservation.

þ Meets business and regulatory requirements for digital signatures, digital records, and Integrity.

þ Creates unique digital fingerprint and certification for any type of digital content.

What Value will the integration of Digiprove into our solution bring?

·         It enables your software solution stand out from the competition by ticking all the boxes above.

·         It enables trust and confidence for all stakeholders in the digital content integrity, its provenance is assured and any tampering identified.

·         It secures the evidential value of digital content for business decisions and for any 3^rd party investigation (which may include eDiscovery)

·         It will enable compliance with 3^rd Party requirements, such as regulators, government & auditors.

·         It will allow you operate without any paper in your process

·         It will differentiate your software solution.

How does Digiprove achieve this? And what is Digiprove’s evidence?

Digiprove is a unique patented technology process that without the need to transmit your digital content to Digiprove, creates a unique digital fingerprint of your digital file(s), it securely registers the fingerprint with the metadata such as owner, Date, Time, Location and creates an audit trail so that should the digital content be altered in anyway it will be evident on verification. Verification can be completed on or off line or can be fully automated using a component from the Digiprove Software Developers Kit.

Our evidence is that we already have over 5000 users and specifically using our SDK it has been integrated into software/solutions with applications in compliance such as Financial Services, Human Resource Management, Financial and legal. In addition The Georgia Technology Institute, the world’s leading authority on Digital Security has tested and verified Digiprove’s technology and here is what they say:

“… the process described in the patent does indeed provide a tamper-proof way to show that digital data has not changed since its timestamp. The process also provides a provision to validate any alteration made after it has been time stamped… the software does faithfully implement the patented 'Digiprove' process providing an authenticated method for establishing proof of existence and possession of digital content of any kind.”

Protect Digital content before Facebook, UTube and Flickr upload

Are your uploads and blogs important to you ?

Whether you are a frequent or occasional publisher of digital content to the Web , have you considered the consequences of unauthorised use of your content ? The answer we most frequently hear is either “ I never thought of that” or “How do I do that”.

Digital content whether it be text, images, photos, audio files or video files are extremely easy to copy, modify and re-use and therefore are open to abuse. The abuse can be malicious or inadvertent and cause reputational damage and/or financial loss.  Alternatively the published content may  just be personally important to you, your organisation, your family ,friends, members, customers, suppliers and colleagues.

So if you use Social Media such as Facebook, UTube, Flickr, and LinkedIn or publish to Websites, Blogs and Forums, you should consider protecting your content. You want to know if it has been accessed and interfered with and/or re used/republished.

Regardless of security systems, abuse still occurs with published and unpublished digital content. In the event your digital content has been misused you want to have evidence firstly that you own the content and also evidence that it has been tampered with. Ultimately whether it was erroneous or malicious that your important content was used you will require this evidence to persuade the party at fault to take action and correct the issue or you may need that evidence in the worst case to seek legal redress for reputational or financial damages.

Digiprove provides an effective solution to protecting your digital content before you publish

Digiprove provides the evidence to prove you own it, prove you sent it, and prove it has been tampered with in a secure and confidential manner. Digiproves patented “Proof Engine” technology is designed to create the provenance, authenticity & integrity of any type of Digital content without the need to send your content to us, so it always remains confidential to you. A unique digital fingerprint of your digital content is created, it is certified and logged as non repudiable proof of its existence and ownership at a point in time (and location on portable devises with GPS). Your content can be validated on-line or off-line at any time to confirm it provenance and integrity.

You only pay for what you need to protect through simple on-line value for money  subscriptions. But before you buy why don’t you try our free trail you will immediately gain confidence that this simple to use system protects your important digital content. You can use our Selfprotect on-line self-service to protect content and email communications, Autoprotect to automate the whole process as a background task in a matter of minutes or Webprotect if you are a user of Wordpress.

http://www.digiprove.com/

Digital Content & SOX compliance

SOX
The Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002 was put in place by the US government to protect investors in public companies following a series of corporate and accounting scandals perpetrated in the late 90’s and early 00’s which included Enron, Tyco International, Adelphia, Peregrine Systems and WorldCom. These scandals, which cost investors billions of dollars when the share prices of affected companies collapsed, shook public confidence in the nation's securities markets.

Much has been written about these scandals and also SOX and what is now required of Public Companies and their stakeholders to secure societies confidence in the Markets and keep corporate officers and employees out of jail. This piece concerns itself with a specific set of challenges relating to Digital Content used in a public company or for that matter any company.

Section 404, 802 & Digital Content

Section 404 of the Act “Assessment of Internal Controls” & Section 802 “Criminal Penalties for influencing US Agency Investigation” are key sections relating to the effectiveness of the act and the actions and processes public companies must take or put in place.

In particular section 404 is concerned with the prevention and detection of fraud and error and the adequacy of controls required. The integrity, authenticity and provenance of digital content (data, text, Audio, Video etc.) must be secured and be non repudiable. We know that digital content is much easier to change than paper based content and public companies must find cost effective solutions to assure trust and confidence in their management and control of Digital content. Section 404 focuses on content authenticity and integrity

Section 802: “ Whoever knowingly alters, destroys, mutilates, conceals, covers up, falsifies, or makes a false entry in any record, document, or tangible object with the intent to impede, obstruct, or influence the investigation or proper administration of any matter within the jurisdiction of any department or agency of the United States or any case filed under title 11, or in relation to or contemplation of any such matter or case, shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both”. This brings home the importance of being able to identify fraudulent, malicious or even just simple errors that may be part of an audit or evidential chain and required to establish trust and confidence in digital data/content. Section 802 in addition to the focus above in section 404 also brings attention to the history and flows of the digital content.

How can public companies identify and prevent fraud or error in their digital content cost effectively?

1.       Identify & List the company’s digital assets (versions, time lines etc.)

2.       Perform a Risk analysis and identify those critical digital assets

3.       Identify those critical digital content types and forms that must be protected and controlled through their life cycle.

Sample critical Digital Assets

·         Contractual documentation

·         Policy & Procedure documents and records

·         Intellectual Property

·         Trademarks and copyright

·         Financial reports

·         HR& employee  records

·         Performance Management records

·         Software applications

·         Software logs

·         Databases

·         Recorded telephone conversations

·         Recorded conference calls(Audio/Video)

·         Images, Photographs, Videos

Identify& implement appropriate software controls as a solution to the digital content/asset protection such as Digiprove.

What are the core features that a simple software solution must have?

·         Establish the authenticity and integrity of digital content on entry into the company’s digital world whether created within that world or entering externally whether it be via an electronic communications or scanned solution. (This can be achieved by creating a unique digital fingerprint of the content and meta data such as date, time, location, ownership)

·         Maintain full confidentiality of this digital content in that it does not get sent externally outside the companies own controlled digital world to be certified.

·         Create an audit trail for the defined digital content and any actions taken on that content.

·         Be able to verify the provenance of any digital content once it has been certified and verify if it has been tampered with.

Digiprove products tick all the boxes:

Selfprotect – a simple SaaS on-line service for content and communications

Autoprotect – a simple background utility that automatically protects the identified files and folders.

Completeprotect – includes digital log event certification and audit trail along with autoprotected content. (New Product)

Signasure – enables and protects documents with all types of digital signatures (New Product)

Brokerprove – A standalone solution for SME professional service providers

Embedprotect – A software developer’s kit that enables Digiprove technology to be quickly integrated into a company’s business applications

http://www.digiprove.com/

http://www.broherprove.com/

HR Digital Content & SOX compliance

SOX
The Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002 was put in place by the US government to protect investors in public companies following a series of corporate and accounting scandals perpetrated in the late 90’s and early 00’s which included Enron, Tyco International, Adelphia, Peregrine Systems and WorldCom. These scandals, which cost investors billions of dollars when the share prices of affected companies collapsed, shook public confidence in the nation's securities markets.

Much has been written about these scandals and also SOX and what is now required of Public Companies and their stakeholders to secure societies confidence in the Markets and keep corporate officers and employees out of jail. This piece concerns itself with a specific set of challenges relating to HR  Digital Content used in a public company or for that matter any company, and the role of HR in ensuring best practice for digital content relating to the management of the primary asset of the company “It’s staff”

Section 404, 301,806 & Digital Content

Section 404 of the Act “Assessment of Internal Controls”

In particular section 404 is concerned with the protection of corporate assets. HR in the context of the overall goals of SOX “To protect investors in public companies” contribute to internal controls relating to people that could create significant financial risk for the organisation including employment law litigation and fraud. Employment contract clauses such as non-disclosure, non-solicit, non-compete, IPR & confidential information protection and performance standards are all critical as are the HR processes to control and manage any exposure. Training is another area of importance such as specific job skills, health & safety, and legal obligations the integrity of the training and training records are also central to avoiding potential litigation whether it be commercial, employment law or product/professional indemnity financial exposures. Add to this that rules and policies relating to procurement, expense reporting and commissions all create potential fraud opportunities then we can see HR their processes and digital content make a significant contribution to SOX compliance.

Section 301 & 806: are also key sections where HR digital content is fundamental to compliance and in fact may produce important digital evidence for internal or external scrutiny. The sections refer to the “Whistle-blower” requirements which are usually managed by HR. Creating a trusted Whistle-blower process with integrity may involve digital content of many types including databases, documents, audio and video records. HR must ensure that the process is fair and transparent, it protects the rights of all parties and that there is avoidance of retaliation litigation risk. Not only that but once whistle-blower reports an incident everything in the system becomes potential evidence so as ediscovery finds this evidence the digital forensic chain must be secured.

How can HR in public companies identify and prevent litigation & financial risk?

1.       Identify & List the company’s HR digital assets (versions, time lines etc.)

2.       Perform a Risk analysis and identify those critical digital assets

3.       Identify those critical digital content types and forms that must be protected and controlled through their life cycle.

4.       Ensure that whistle-blowers procedures are digital and evidential friendly

5.       Put in place adequate digital evident and asset authenticity and integrity controls

Identify& implement appropriate software controls as a solution to the digital content/asset protection such as Digiprove.

What are the core features that a simple software solution must have?

·         Establish the authenticity and integrity of digital content on entry into the company’s HR digital world whether created within that world or entering externally whether it be via an electronic communications or scanned solution. (This can be achieved by creating a unique digital fingerprint of the content and meta data such as date, time, location, ownership)

·         Maintain full confidentiality of this HR digital content in that it does not get sent externally outside the companies own controlled digital world to be certified.

·         Create an audit trail for the defined HR digital content and any actions taken on that content.

·         Be able to verify the provenance of any HR digital content once it has been certified and verify if it has been tampered with.

Digiprove products tick all the boxes:

Selfprotect – a simple SaaS on-line service for content and communications

Autoprotect – a simple background utility that automatically protects the identified files and folders.

Completeprotect – includes digital log event certification and audit trail along with autoprotected content. (New Product)

Signasure – enables and protects documents with all types of digital signatures (New Product)

Brokerprove – A standalone solution for SME professional service providers

Embedprotect – A software developer’s kit that enables Digiprove technology to be quickly integrated into a company’s business applications

Data Protection & Digital Content in HR: How To Draft A Policy

http://protect.digiprove.com/human-resources

We know that the aim of a data protection policy is to ensure that employees are aware of their own rights, and of their obligations concerning personal data processed by their employer.  The purpose of a data protection act is to enforce compliance from employers to make sure they carry out their obligations to the employee. So, who is a data protection policy for, and what exactly can it do that benefits a HR department?

A data protection policy is not only for the benefit of full time employees. It could be used to protect contract workers, agency staff and other kinds of workers too. In the HR department, it is particularly important that employee data is protected; especially considering it’s the department that all major employment decisions go through. This kind of data requires high security and proof of authenticity.

How do we go about formulating a data protection policy?

A lot goes into designing a data protection policy, but here are a couple of points to get you started. A general data protection policy should:

·         Identify a person within the organization who will have responsibility for ensuring that the employer complies with data protection regulations. This person will usually be a senior figure in the HR department.

·         It should ensure that employees are fully aware of any data held about them, and that they understand how this data could be used and disclosed. It is normal practice that an organization will use personal data like salary and pensions, and this will be held on an electronic device. The depth of this data could go further, for example employers may keep health records for reference.

It is vital that employee data held on organizational systems can be transparent and trustworthy. That’s where Autoprotect comes in as an asset to the HR department in maintaining legitimacy of files, and supporting their data protection policy.

The above are just two points about what a data protection policy should enforce. For further information, make sure to keep your eyes on our blog.

Socitm Seminar "Fri Feb 10th" Park Ave Hotel, Belfast

Efficiency – the tools of the trade

Park Avenue Hotel, Belfast

Friday 10th February 2012

Agenda

  9:30am           Registration

10:00am           Welcome and opening remarks
Joe Dolan, Chair SOCITM NI

10:10am           Reducing the Cost of your Telecommunications Infrastructure

- meeting your audit and governance requirements

                        Ger Connery, Sentel

10:50am           ITIL – Sustainable Efficiency, Effectiveness & Value in IT Services

            Bill Heffernan, Principal ITSM consultant SureSkills

11:20am           T E A   A N D   C O F F E E

11:40am           Implementing LEAN in a customer services environment

                        Jonathan Wilson, The Gem

12:10pm           Work of the Performance and Efficiency Delivery Unit (PEDU)

Richard Pengally, Performance and Efficiency Delivery Unit

12:30pm           Closing Remarks

Joe Dolan, Chair SOCITM NI

  

L U N C H

        

         

To reserve a place, please contact the branch secretary: Marie McCrory

To find out more about Socitm NI, please visit: http://www.socitm.net

To become a member of Socitm NI  https://www.socitm.net/forms/form/12/join_socitm