Amendment to the Public Finance Act Regulations - Web 2.0

This is a guest post by Genevieve Hancock. Genevieve Hancock is a Solicitor at the Government Technology Services (GTS) within the Department of Internal Affairs.

Want to use social media tools to communicate with New Zealanders? Or manipulate data feeds with Yahoo!Pipes? Want to use WordPress to create some wonderful new application for your Government employer?

Well now it is easier. GTS lawyers and Treasury officials have worked together to amend the regulations under the Public Finance Act 1989 allowing departments to grant

“any guarantee or indemnity contained in the standard terms and conditions for the purchase, licence, or use by the Crown of— (i) an Internet site: (ii) software: (iii) information technology tools, products, or services.”

Prior to the amended regulations, under the provisions of the Public Finance Act, only the Minister of Finance was able to give indemnities of the type usually required in the standard terms for web 2.0 tools and applications. Entering into the standard terms for web 2.0 tools and applications has therefore previously been problematic under the Public Finance Act.

The websites, software, tools, products and services intended to be covered by the amendment are:

• social networking and collaboration sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Bebo, MySpace and Flickr, YouTube, Animoto and Vimeo
• analytics and data manipulation tools such as Google Analytics and Urchin, FeedBurner and Yahoo! Pipes
• hosted services such as wordpress, PBWiki, Confluence and SocialText.
• packaged software (such as Microsoft Office, Matlab), SSL digital certificates (such as VeriSign, Thawte), Server virtualisation software (such as VMWare), database software (such as Oracle, SQL Server), open source software (where the contribution agreements in particular may require an indemnity), software supporting web technologies (such as Adobe Flash Player, Sun Java), antivirus software (Sophos) and smartphone software (Blackberry, Symbian).