Study to look at N.Z. as information centre

Press, 21 August 1989, Page 3

Study to look at N.Z. as information centre

By

RICHARD CRESSWELL

The Government is funding a feasibility study to look at the costs to New Zealand of becoming a global information storage centre, the Minister of Disarmament, Ms Wilde, told a meeting in Christchurch yesterday.

It was time for New Zealand to look at its achievements and “use them for the benefit of the whole world,” she said.

New Zealand’s geographic position, its level of development and its political stability provided advantages that most, if not all other countries, did not have 7 when the impact of global disasters was being reviewed. Distance from potential centres of global nuclear conflict presented opportunities for New Zealand to provide services for the rest of the world, said Ms Wilde. A group of people in New Zealand had been proposing that New Zealand become a home for the world’s knowledge and vital records, she said. Such a project could well become commercially viable but could not get off the ground without help from the Government, said Ms Wilde. Government funding would cover 12 months work on the project. Security for information already stored in computer databases by both

national and international organisations and economies would be part of the scheme, she said. The information stored could be widened to include technology and cultural details, as well as economic and commercial information. In announcing the study, Ms Wilde paid tribute to Mr John Gallagher, of Christchurch, who had already promoted the idea overseas. Mr Gallagher, a . member of the Nuclear Free Peacemaking Association, said after the meeting that the study was expected to cost about $50,000. “The study will mean we know where to go next,” he said. The proposal for the “international repository of knowledge” was made by the then executive director of Databank Systems, Ltd, Mr Gordon Hogg, in 1985. Mr Gallagher said the information could come from both East and West and be deposited in a mutually acceptable site available to all. “It would be of great benefit to the developing southern areas of the world to have information here from the industrial north.” He said there was a lot of international interest in the proposal, especially from the international telecommunications industry. :