State's digital system very fragile: Minister Ihusan

The digital infrastructure of the state was a in a very fragile state, vulnerable to an unusually high amount of corruption, said Homeland Security and Technology Minister Ali Ihusan on Saturday night.

Speaking at the launching ceremony of Maldives 2.0's digital transformation summit, Minister Ihusan said many government agencies had portals of email systems in place to seek government services, adding that applicants were required to upload documents issued by one government agency, which then required separate transactions between two government agencies to verify the document.

"A culture of calling someone who they knew or was believed to expedite the process for money had been established widely," Ihusan said.

Ihusan said each government agency has a separate database with separate physical servers and data storage systems. Describing how weak the government's digital system is, Ihusan said information had been duplicated, with individual usernames for many systems, which were then used by different people to access systems while there was no traceability and responsible audit done.

"We cannot guarantee that all of the data in the systems is safe and secure. The stability and security of the systems are to the level of the ability of the people who were working there at the time," he said.

"There was no statewide standard, in short there were individual silos, individual mechanism and individual systems. It was a costly and opaque system, with weak security. It was extraordinarily prone to corruption. And it is not today's accepted standard. It does not fit the current era."

Ihusan said President Muizzu brought the Maldives 2.0 policy and started implementing it to change the current situation.

"This policy is essential for the country and the people of Maldives for this reason. In Maldives 2.0, we will establish a transparent system. Systems where no island or individual is left out. A system where all government services are connected via one system, and does not require duplication of information submission," Ihusan said.