Bureau of Statistics seeks Notes-friendly email

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has issued a request for tender for a secure email system estimated to be worth between $70,000 and $90,000.

Tender documents released this week invited submissions until 28 March, but warned that the ABS may terminate the deal if and when the Government introduced new coordinated procurement policies.

"It is ... possible that the procurement may become subject to a coordinated procurement contracting arrangement," the Bureau stated.

"Where centralised procurement of those goods and services deliver savings to the Commonwealth, the ABS may terminate the RFT process and not proceed to enter any contract as a result of this RFT."

The successful solution was expected to work with ABS systems and email infrastructurem including Lotus Notes/Domino applications, content inspection proxies, anti-virus scanners, firewalls, Oracle databases, scans for outgoing sensitive data and the Government’s Fedlink network.

ABS required all outgoing sensitive data - including both the body text and any attachments - to be delivered securely to authenticated recipients with suitable authentication technologies.

Any incoming text and attachments was also expected to be delivered securely.