(Radio Iowa) – Governor Kim Reynolds says the two companies she’s hired to manage state government computer networks will not have access to Iowans’ personal data. Iowans provide their Social Security numbers, for example, when they file their state income taxes and voter registration forms require birth dates and other identification, like a driver’s license number. The governor says security issues were resolved during negotiations.
“There’s all kinds of contracts and MOUs and things that you have to sign,” Reynolds said, “and even when it came to like the HIPAA data, we’ve got a form that you have to sign that you can’t release any of the information — they absolutely no access to any of that data and so there wasn’t any need for them to sign it because they can’t even access the information that we have.”
Last week, Reynolds announced Cognizant will provide technical assistance to state agencies and employees using computers and Amazon Web Services will move all state government computer networks to the internet.) “We had 5,500 servers and on top of that we have 137 servers that were in closets that we didn’t even know about,” Reynolds said, “and so with this transition we’ll have just world class cybersecurity, we’ll be in the cloud, we’ll have industry leading data storage and management.”
Reynolds says she signed the contracts with the two companies because I-T services are not a core government function. “We’re not very good at it because we can’t keep up with this rapidly changing environment,” Reynolds said, “and that’s something the private sector should be doing.” Reynolds made her comments during taping of this week’s “Iowa Press” program which is online now at Iowa P-B-S dot org.
The governor estimates that state will save over half a billion dollars over the next decade by having the two companies manage state government computer networks. The contracts call for the State of Iowa to pay Amazon and Cognizant nearly 420 million dollars over the next 10 years.
