If you live in Canada, you are automatically under the law of the provincial government and affected by their decisions. Provincial and territorial governments are responsible for a plethora of socio-political matters; The provincial government is primarily responsible for economic functions, social services, governance, and legislature. With these responsibilities comes the need to securely sign and exchange confidential documentation while maintaining a high level of security. This raises the question: how do provincial governments securely transfer documents?
Legacy Systems
Many provincial governments continue to use legacy systems to exchange sensitive information. However, the Government of Canada has placed an emphasis on the need to replace these systems in an attempt to meet citizens’ desire for IT-enabled services.
Contrary to the new cloud-based technologies that exist today, legacy systems are outdated and non-secure. Common tools include USBs, email, and CDs which are most likely used due to their convenient, easy-to-use, and cost-effective nature. Unfortunately, for provincial governments that must satisfy security and compliance standards, they are not sufficient.
❌ USBs:
- Malware infected computers can compromise data by transferring infection onto the device
- Easily be misplaced, stolen, or lost
- No password protection; unauthorized individuals can easily access
❌ Email:
- Not encrypted
- Maximum file upload size of 25 MB; Cannot send large files to clients or colleagues
❌ CDs/DVDs:
- Inconvenient to burn data onto DVDs. Most computers don’t come with CD/DVD burners anymore.
- Easily be misplace, stolen, or lost
The best method for provincial governments to securely transfer files is through cloud-based file transfer services.
Secure File Transfer Services
The province of British Columbia states that cloud technology is “the next great step” in their government’s digital transformation. The goal of integrating cloud technology is to improve how services are delivered to citizens by streamlining processes, collaboration, and communication with clients and public bodies via the cloud. The best cloud computing services for these instances are file-sharing services that provide client collaboration and secure file transfers. Finding government-approved cloud service providers, however, can be challenging considering the strict security requirements, but not impossible. 
Provincial governments have a high standard of vendor compliance requirements due to the nature of the work handled. They manage high-priority, confidential and restricted information that requires state-of-the-art security measures to sign, send, and receive documents. With that in mind, the cloud service providers utilized by the government must adhere to the extensive requirements and assessments to ensure they have adequate risk management processes and information security. That is why government organizations, such as the College of Physicians and Neurosurgeons of Nova Scotia, use TitanFile.
TitanFile is an award-winning file transfer service that provides government bodies with the tools and features to easily and securely send and receive files. For the provincial government, the key features offered are security, privacy, and large file transfers. TitanFile is SOC 27001 certified and compliant with, PIPEDA to protect personal data privacy. In addition, all files are automatically encrypted to ensure unauthorized third parties cannot gain access to your information. Client-side encryption is provided so that only the file administrator can access their data. Provincial governments need easy and secure file transfers, TitanFile provides that.
Conclusion
Provincial governments should make way for the implementation of cloud-based services. Technological adoption has been on the rise in the past few years and will continue as governments experience improved efficiency. Due to the security and compliance requirements, only select cloud-computing services are registered for use by the provincial government. Luckily, TitanFile is one of them. See how other government organizations use TitanFile for their file transfers to learn how it may benefit you.