Data Loss and ISO 32000

The Philippine Government consumes vast quantities of paper as it goes about the business of running the archipelago. From an environmental perspective, this is naturally abhorrent.

The E Commerce Act and the the Rules on Electronic Evidence have provided legal basis to justify the move toward a paperless office but actual infrastructure seems to be lacking. The type of file format as well as security measures to entail data integrity seem to be under wraps insofar as the general public is concerned.

Data stored electronically is susceptible to data corruption or data loss as the storage devices wear out, are damaged or corrupted. Government can't have that and the public should be informed as to security measures taken to insure data integrity. In the current system of doing things, paper documents are sometimes mysteriously lost, altered, fabricated and destroyed. In extreme cases, a city hall building catches fire "accidentally" and several important records and documents get reduced to ash. The original ZTE contract was even stolen and the Republic had to make do with a reconstituted copy. All of these underscore the need for an efficient and compact data storage and back up system.

There are two formats that I believe the Gov should look at. One is the PDF format championed and developed by Adobe. The PDF format is well known to desktop publishers and is listed by the Free Software Foundation as one of its High Priority free Software Projects that it seeks to have ISO 32000 certified. Not bad. The another format is Lizardtech's DjVu. DjVu as a format is more compact than PDF and is not as widely used. The advantage of DjVu is that it is not as widely known and very few Filipinos know how to edit or manipulate files stored in that format.

Of course whatever format is eventually chosen, data loss and data corruption must be addressed before a paperless system can be implemented. A backup system in the event of a Fire Sale ala Die Hard 4.0 would be nice but our country is probably at least seven years away from any paperless system. Why seven? Seven is the number of deadly sins. Seriously though, with presidential elections coming up, efficiency and the environment are the last thing on the mind of the Filipinos.