Council returning to paper documents tonight after iPads’ access ended

NC GAZETTE / WBRT RADIO
STAFF REPORT

Tuesday, Feb. 14, 2017, 2 p.m.– Tonight’s Bardstown City Council meeting will mean a return to paper documents in the wake of last week’s municipal order the council approved to gain independent control over their city-provided Apple iPads.

The day after the vote, the council’s iPads access to the City of Bardstown’s document sharing system was cut off due to security concerns, according to Mayor John Royalty.

Mayor John Royalty, left, and Councilman Joe Buckman, right, examine documents on City Clerk Barbie Bryant’s iPad at a recent council meeting.

Since the iPads were issued to the members of the council, they have provided electronic versions of the paper documents that once filled the council member’s desks. The iPads were connected to the city’s servers with an app called SharePlus, software that allows mobile devices to share and manage documents that are part of the Windows SharePoint document management system.

The iPads were remotely managed and controlled by the city’s IT staff. The council members had little control over the devices, and could not add apps on their own.

A municipal order drafted by Councilman John Kelley and approved last Tuesday established the council’s right to access and control their iPads independently and gave the council the right to any information regarding city matters in possession of the city or one of its departments.

Royalty told the media he based his security concerns on a Feb. 6, 2017, memo authored by Brandon Brewer, the city’s IT supervisor, about the possible impact of Kelley’s municipal order.

Brewer’s memo outlined the IT department’s concerns with the changes that included giving council members the ability to download and install the apps of their choosing.

“Full download permissions on iPads would generate new or widen current attack surfaces of technological infrastructure that already exist,” Brewer wrote.

But Brewer’s memo concluded that the changes created by the municipal order were generally manageable. The order would require council members to take responsibility for installing needed software updates (or bring their devices to the city IT department for the updates). Council members would also be required to take responsibility for maintaining and producing documents for Open Records Requests.

Brewer recommends replacing the iPad’s use of the city’s internal SharePoint document sharing service with an external one.

So far however, a new document sharing service has not been established for use with the iPads, which means for the short term, the council will return to paper documents until a solution is devised.

NEXT UP. The Bardstown City Council will meet tonight at 7 p.m. in the City Hall Annex next to the Rec Center on Xavier Drive.

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