Scottish Government has established a Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS) to simplify the procurement of IoT technologies and services across the Public Sector in Scotland. Among the organisations selected is Merseyside based SME GeDaP (General Data Protected) who specialise in IoT integration and security.
The DPS went live at the start of September and runs until September 2021. It covers the wide range of differing technologies which are relevant across the diverse spectrum of central government, health, local government, universities, colleges, voluntary sector and all public bodies.
The Scottish public sector is at an early stage with IoT but it forecasts growth during the period of this arrangement necessitating innovative solutions and efficiency benefits. Due to the increase in the cyberthreat, security is an important aspect of this IoT arrangement.
Alex Lennon, GeDaP CTO, said: “Scotland provides the most challenging environment for communications in the UK. With the modularity of KISS we are able to provide a wide range of networking options to meet the needs of town, river, loch, and mountain. In addition, we will rise to meet the challenges of resilience and reliable to ensure a realistic cost of ownership.”
Currently GeDaP is working with Sensor City and the University of Liverpool to establish a demonstration system in Sensor City based on a Raspberry Pi based KISS (KeyTalk IoT Secured Sensors) unit. This unit gathers data within the building from multiple sensors, undertakes local processing displaying data before securely sending authenticated and encrypted output to AWS. The installation will be “Secure by Design” and compliant with IoT Security Foundation Best Practice.
The DPS includes systems integration and GeDaP look forward to working closely with specialist suppliers within the Sensor City chain to maximise the opportunity for Merseyside.
Ian Young, GeDaP CEO, added: “With the capability of GeDaP’s KISS to provide PKI cyber security meeting GCHQ/NATO standards, whilst requiring virtually zero administration, we are able to secure virtually any sensor. The power of modern micro-processors is enabling us to increasingly move forward into AI (Artificial Intelligence) whilst employing increasingly resilient hardware to reduce the load on central computing”.