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The White House wants to make online commerce more secure, according to White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Howard Schmidt. During a conference hosted by the Health and Human Service Department“™s Office of Civil Rights and National Institute for Standards and Technology, Schmidt said the White House is looking to develop a strategy to cut down on identity fraud and make online transactions more secure.
The ultimate goal is to build trust in the e-commerce systems, so that consumers, government and industry will be more comfortable using them to conduct transactions.
“The key issue is that we have to instill trust in the system,“ Schmidt said. “If we don“™t trust the system, we won“™t use it and if we don“™t use it, we lose its benefits.
Another reason that has sped up the process of enhancing security, is the push towards electronic medical records and devices. Some devices are now being placed in patients, such as electronic heart monitors, that transmit information to smart phones, computers and electronic health records.
According to Schmidt, President Barack Obama is dedicated to ensuring that proper security accompanies the widespread use of electronic health records.
“We also have the right controls for security and privacy,“ Schmidt said.
Also, any system needs to be secure but also easy to use. Small practice physicians need to have the same security as organizations that can afford to hire full-time security personnel.
“One-person physician offices have to be part of this system,“ Schmidt said. “They have to have the capacity to trust identity and to trust medical records and information because they don“™t have infrastructure and they don“™t have a CIO.“
