Forward-thinking Derby City Council joins a growing list of Local Authorities throughout England, Scotland, and Wales by selecting Egress’ award-winning email and file encryption product, Egress Protect, to protect sensitive information shared with external third parties.
Councillor Russell, Cabinet Member for Business, Finance and Democracy says, “The Council takes the security of information it holds extremely seriously. I am happy that Egress Protect enables Council Officers to carry out their day-to-day duties effectively and that we are able to realise the necessary cost savings to fund other essential Council services.”
The challenge
Driven by an initial requirement from their social services team to exchange information securely with third parties outside the Government Secure Extranet (GCSX), Derby City Council needed a scalable solution that would also integrate with their Microsoft Exchange environment.
Initially the Council explored the option of using their existing document and content management system to securely collaborate and share information. Unfortunately, the system’s licensing model meant that providing all users with access would cost considerably more than the Council’s budget for the entire project.
“The Council takes the security of information it holds extremely seriously. I am happy that Egress Protect enables Council Officers to carry out their day to day duties effectively and that we are able to realise the necessary cost savings to fund other essential Council services.”
Councillor Russell, Cabinet member for Business, Finance and Democracy, Derby City Council
The solution
As an alternative, Derby City Council decided to evaluate Egress Protect, the flagship product by Egress Software Technologies, the leading provider of encryption services to organisations in the public and private sectors. The Council had become aware of Egress as a result of the London Councils Procurement Framework which was orchestrated by Capital Ambition in 2011 to help Local Authorities in London share information securely outside of existing Government networks with third parties. Egress Protect had been chosen by all London Boroughs to provide the underlying technology for the Framework because it offered a choice of delivery platforms including on-premise, hybrid, or fully hosted infrastructure and was by far the easiest to use when delivering real-time auditing and ‘follow the data’ control.
Although the original agreement had been created for Local Authorities in London, Derby City Council (like any council in the UK) were able to benefit from the Framework’s contractual purchasing and discounted pricing models which were available through the Government Procurement Service’s prime contractor, Computacenter. As a result, Derby City Council made considerable costs savings by purchasing at the discounted rate and benefited from a rapid procurement process, because much of the work had already been done.
In addition to these procurement benefits, Egress Protect provided the ease of use for end-users, scalability and full integration with Microsoft Exchange that Derby City Council were looking for and could also be implemented and up and running in a matter of weeks which was crucial in ensuring the Council avoided any data security breaches.
“Originally we began evaluating email and file encryption solutions because a single team at the Council had an immediate requirement to share information securely. What became apparent very quickly was that this wasn’t an isolated case, and across the organisation we needed to ensure we were compliant and information was secure,” commented Miles Peters, Technical Project Lead, Derby City Council.
End-user benefits
“Egress Protect was chosen because of its level of integration with Microsoft Outlook, the ease of use for end users and the fact that the implementation took no time at all so we could be up and running quickly. As a result of the integration with Microsoft, we were able to make substantial cost savings as we were not reliant on our existing document and content management system which had a very expensive licensing model. What is more the existing framework meant we could procure quickly and had the reassurance that we were getting best value for money.”
Tony Pepper, CEO of Egress Software Technologies, commented, “We are delighted that Derby City Council has chosen Egress to fulfil their information and data encryption requirements. We are seeing more and more customers with a requirement to securely share information outside their existing networks with third parties and there is a real concern that without the right system, they could fall foul of data breaches and potentially fines from the Information Commissioners Office (ICO). In addition, customers are now recognising the potential cost and efficiency savings Egress provides. The fact that Egress is helping to protect organisations against data security challenges, as well as helping them reduce operational costs is really pleasing, particularly in today’s economic climate.”