In 2004 the ATIS Board of Directors established a Chief Information Officer (CIO) Council, chaired by BellSouth’s Chief Information, E-Commerce and Security Officer, Francis Dramis. At the time of its creation, the primary role of the CIO Council was to lead an analysis by the telecommunications and financial services sectors for assuring diversity of existing National Security/Emergency Preparedness (NS/EP) communications circuits in a multi-carrier environment.

Following the successful completion of the initiative – and at the request of the Council – on March 21, 2006, the ATIS Board of Directors approved an expansion of the scope of work performed by the CIO Council to a much broader range of priority IT issues critical to the telecommunications industry.

At the July 13, 2006 ATIS Board of Directors meeting, there was unanimous approval to establish a new ATIS committee to address the issues identified by the CIO Council Security and SOX Working Groups, as well as any new issues involving information and data security. This new committee is the Information and Data Security Committee (IDSC).

The IDSC held its first meeting September 20-21, 2006, at the ATIS offices in Washington, DC. The new committee is open to all ATIS member companies. For more information, contact Yvonne Reigle, ATIS Director-Standards Development, via email at yreigle@atis.org or by phone at (215) 340-1087.