"Today, digital Lithuania is more secure and open than ever – we are starting to use not only our infrastructure to store data but also that of other countries. This means that in emergencies, the digital state will be able to continue to function - we will be able to use copies of data stored abroad, no matter what happens to the servers in Lithuania," says Aušrinė Armonaitė, Minister of Economy and Innovation.
One of the data centres in NATO countries is already storing backup copies of the country's most important registers – more than 1,000 terabytes of the key data of Lithuania, such as the Population Register, the Real Estate Register and Cadastre, the Register of Addresses of the Republic of Lithuania, etc., have been migrated here.
Eglė Markevičiūtė, Vice-Minister of Economy and Innovation, emphasizes that the amendments to the Law on Management of State Information Resources drafted by the Ministry of Economy and Innovation and adopted by the Seimas today will contribute to additional security of digital services of the state.
"This Law will allow for more flexible and efficient management of state information resources, using both public and commercial data centers and the public cloud services. Institutional data will be classified according to relevance and sensitivity; their storage sites will be diversified. This will help protect our state from cyber-attacks or other threats and ensure the smooth functioning of state institutions," says E. Markevičiūtė.
According to the amendments to the Law, state institutions will be obliged to keep copies of data approved by the Government, which should be available in the event of war, states of emergency, disaster management or other critical situations, not only in Lithuania but also in data centers of other countries of the European Union, the European Economic Area or the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). These copies would be used whenever data stored in Lithuania is no longer available.
In cooperation with all public authorities, the Ministry of Economic and Innovation aims to open up as much depersonalized data as possible to the public and businesses. According to a review by the Information Society Development Committee (ISDC), the number of datasets opened during the year has almost doubled. The number of people interested in open data has grown 5-fold.
This year, we expect to intensify further the process of opening up data by opening up at least 500 datasets, including high-value data that could form the basis for new products and technologies. The estimate shows that the efficient use of data can generate an additional 2% of national GDP.
