Council chambers are seen from outside the glass doors during a weekly Ottawa city council meeting in Andrew S. Haydon Hall.
A top-level tech buff will be in charge of protecting the City of Ottawa against hackers and scammers in a new position created by the municipal government as it tries to bolster confidence in its cyber defences.
The city is on the hunt for its first chief information security and digital risk officer who will be responsible for building an information technology (IT) risk management program.
Hackers and fraudsters are regularly sniffing around Ottawa’s municipal government and there have been high-profile attacks on staff and systems.
IT falls under a new city portfolio — the innovative client services department, which is a catchall of corporate branches, including human resources, communications and fleet services — and a new general manager who has the chops to strengthen the city’s IT defences.
Valerie Turner, who joined the city last August, was previously a vice-president of IT at MD Financial Management. She has also held senior tech roles at the University of Ottawa,…
