At the June meeting of the UK Southern Chapter, Brig. Dougie Rowlinson, British Army (Ret.), former assistant director of information assurance (IA), Defence Communication Services Agency, Corsham, United Kingdom, outlined the changes the U.K. Ministry of Defence (MOD) is implementing in IA risk management. The brigadier presented a briefing on the results of the second steering committee review, which examined the conflict between security accreditation and the requirements of information management and exploitation. Brig. Rowlinson also told attendees that the purpose of IA is to support business while maintaining the integrity, availability and confidentiality of data. He explained that in the short term, the MOD will need to develop a policy that allows nonexpert users to understand the constraints in designing and operating systems. In the long term, the issues of interconnectivity and flexible boundaries need to be addressed through a new architecture in which information is tagged and tracked, the brigadier said.

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