The Australian National Office for the Information Economy (NOIE) today said it wouldn't endorse use of Microsoft's controversial document security technology, Information Rights Management (IRM) in Commonwealth agencies.

NOIE, general manager infrastructure and governance, Steve Alford, said that the advisory body had assessed both prototypes and the latest iteration of Microsoft's rights management technology and found it to unsuitable for the government's needs.

"We have come to the conclusion that without a lot more study we wouldn't be recommending the adoption of this via a government agency at this point in time," said Alford.

IRM, an application of Windows Rights Management included in the latest release of Microsoft Office, Office 2003, allows users to exercise control over who can access documents they create.

IRM lets users create, among other things, documents that can only be read by authorised groups or individuals. Once a set of -rights" is applied to a document, access to it is controlled by a complementing Windows rights management server.

There are two components of the technology: the first allows organisations to protect internal documents; the second version allows the wider community to protect documents where Microsoft Passport is the authenticating agent.

Alford indicated that IRM might be suitable for small organisations but wasn't suitable for government work.

"[IRM's] designed for a different purpose to the sorts of things that government would want to do. It has to do with the way in which a desktop might work for an individual buyer or perhaps a small company...Government in its dealings with the public has a range of security concerns and perhaps the other solutions we're looking at provide a better fit," he said.

Microsoft Australia has been shy about its local efforts to promote IRM in the government market.

Microsoft Australia Office Systems product manager, Michael Leaworthy, last week revealed that the company would be working with customers and local regulatory bodies in Australia to "[make] sure that they do understand that there may be legal requirements about data retention and encryption of documents".

Leaworthy said the moves were in line with similar campaigns in European and North American markets. However Julie Inman, senior corporate affairs manager was unable to take the opportunity to comment about its local efforts in more detail.

"Microsoft engages with the Australian government on a number of policy and technical issues both proactively and at the request of the Government. We have discussed the policy and technical aspects around rights management with government and will continue to do so in the interest of education, full disclosure and open dialogue," said Inman.

Copyright © 2009 CBS Interactive, a CBS Company. All Rights Reserved.
ZDNET is a registered service mark of CBS Interactive. ZDNET Logo is a service mark of CBS Interactive.