Security threats Toolkit

Hacking fears hit e-voting plans

Kablenet.com

Published: 07 Feb 2005 16:50 GMT

The Irish government intends to push on with its e-voting programme despite criticism over costs and security from a parliamentary committee.

It was revealed during a Public Accounts Committee meeting in the Irish parliament that a €52m system, which has not yet been used, is costing taxpayers nearly €1m each year to store and maintain. Concerns were also raised over the security of the system, and that various components of the system dated back to the 1980s.

Committee chair Michael Noonan called for "absolute assurances" that the system would be secure from the risk of hacking by what he described as a number of "electronic experts that have been redundant since they stopped planting bombs".

He described testing of the system as "slipshod" and was concerned that some of the technology components were more than 15 years old.

But a spokesperson for the Department of the Environment, which is responsible for e-voting, said the government fully intends to push on with the programme.

The department is happy that the proprietary system which had been "developed over a number of years" and "built from the ground up" is secure, the spokesperson told Government Computing News. The government is now waiting for the committee's findings before making any decisions about the system.

The Irish government planned to introduce e-voting at local and European elections in June 2004 but was forced to abandon this when a report from the country's Independent Commission on Electronic Voting raised doubts over the accuracy of the system's software.

Environment minister Niall Callan had admitted during the committee meeting that public confidence in the system was low but remained convinced that it would be used in future elections.