Outreach Dual Zone Case Management offers twin data security benefits

STONEHOUSE, U.K. - March 3, 2015 - PRLog -- Toplevel has developed Dual Zone for Outreach case management software. The new patent pending technology provides public sector organisations with a government-class encrypted data solution to address critical data security and data aggregation issues. Dual Zone addresses present and future regulatory challenges by allowing up to IL3 / OFFICIAL sensitive information to be stored and processed securely.

Dual Zone has been specifically designed to provide secure data handling to address the high number of data breach incidents experienced in the public sector. Data breaches are on the increase due to a number of factors, from the increased mobility of data to poor enforcement of security policy, and were up 101 percent in Q2 2014 compared to the same period the previous year. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has the power to issue Civil Monetary Penalties of up to £500,000 for data breaches found to contravene the Data Protection Act, with several organisations fined between £80,000 and £325,000 over recent years. Local government alone has been fined £2.3m over the past five years. The combination of encrypted data, secure key management and restricted network access afforded by Dual Zone facilitates full compliance with the DPA, preventing data loss or compromise either unintentionally or through malicious attack.

Dual Zone also addresses data aggregation, helping ease the problems associated with collating and storing masses of data, particularly sensitive records. In those instances where data aggregation rules would usually bump the impact level to IL3 / OFFICIAL sensitive, ‘Encrypt Zone’ avoids this by individually encrypting each record with its own separately managed key.

“Organisations need to address the thorny issue of data security before their hands are forced by the EU Data Directive Reform which will become law in the next 12-14 months. Outreach Dual Zone provides that compliance and it addresses real public sector pain points, from the heightened risk of a data breach, as evidenced by recent ICO figures, to the problem of handling aggregated data of a sensitive nature. Dual Zone tackles the biggest security problems facing the public sector today and in doing so removes one of the chief obstacles to cloud adoption, enabling more public sector organisations to ‘put Cloud first’.”

Jane Roberts,
Toplevel's Strategy Director

How it works
Dual Zone partitions and secures case management data using managed key encryption while still allowing government staff, their customers and outside agencies to connect over a single joined-up system. The patent-pending technology features a dual architecture comprising the ‘Encrypt Zone’ for customers to access encrypted data and the ‘Staff Zone’ from where case management staff initiate and control communications. Customer records are individually encrypted and each assigned their own key housed separately in the ‘Encrypt Zone’. This gives sensitive personal information maximum protection. The secure data handling offered by Dual Zone underpins public sector compliance with the Data Protection Act, the Government Protective Marking Scheme (GPMS) and the imminent EU Data Protection Directive Reform Bill.

Dual Zone is the latest addition to the flexible defence-in-depth security approach in Outreach 15. The unique dual server architecture allows the ‘Encrypt Zone’ and ‘Staff Zone’ servers to operate in tandem while ensuring communication is maintained via the data synchronisation engine common to both servers. Consequently, Dual Zone can be deployed in a number of different ways, from an external hosted ‘Encrypt Zone’ and internally housed ‘Staff Zone’, to a fully hosted solution in a datacentre or the Cloud.

Other capabilities in Outreach 2015
Additionally the Outreach 15 release includes enhanced security for data when secured with a document ID and password, improved Welsh language support, improved ability for customers to retain and share collaborative project documents and records, extended APIs for Single Sign On support, better control of email messages, a responsive bookings interface and more powerful Theme Designer for customising look and feel.

About Toplevel
Toplevel delivers digital technology and staff-facing case management solutions that help Public Sector organisations to meet the Digital by Default Service Standard quickly, securely and cost effectively. We work collaboratively with Government teams to build flexible, configurable and reliable, low-code solutions that reduce risk while delivering the benefits of bespoke customer-facing applications with the cost advantages and deployment speed of COTS.

We have delivered projects on behalf of national government agencies across the UK including the Ministry of Justice (Legal Aid Agency), Arts Council England, Heritage Lottery Fund, Commonwealth Scholarship Commission and Environment Agency. As a G-Cloud Framework supplier, we also deliver 8 SaaS services: eCase, eApply, aClaim, eAudit, eGrant, eDiary, eCourse, eForms. Toplevel offer the highest levels of certification and compliance including ITIL V3 accreditation and ISO 27001 certification. To find out more, please go to: toplev.com, search LinkedIn /company/toplevel or follow us on Twitter at ToplevelGov.