'It's such a wake up call': Tech expert says serious changes needed after Rogers outage

Following the Rogers network crash, one technology expert says serious changes are needed.

Maithili Mavinkurve, a senior fellow for the Centre for International Governance Innovation, says the outage should serve as an eye-opener for all Canadians.

“It’s such a wake up call,” Mavinkurve told CTV News.

On top of impacting phone, cable and internet use, the outage caused issues at airports, border crossings, and BC Ferries terminals.

It also impacted payment methods at local businesses and hampered people’s ability to call 911.

“This is critical infrastructure for Canadians. We need to understand very critically, very deeply, what actually went wrong,” Mavinkurve said. “This is not just having a bad day. There’s critical business processes, financial systems, hospital emergency systems.”

Mavinkurve says as we move more and more into a digitally dominated society, more frequent assessments need to be done to technological networks.

“Are we assessing this digital technology as critical infrastructure?" she asked. "If that’s the case, how are we ensuring that this type of thing doesn’t happen again?”

She adds that consumers have to become more mindful as well.

“Perhaps having a bit of diversification in your own home and your business so that you realize, 'Hey, this is critical infrastructure, I cannot rely on that single provider,'” Mavinkurve said.

Rogers CEO Tony Staffieri told CTV News the cause of Friday was a “network system failure” following a maintenance update done between late Thursday night and early Friday morning.

Mavinkurve says the outage should also push the federal government to look deeper into national security and public safety measures.

“We’re going to have to look at broader picture sort of policies and strategies such that risk is mitigated before it happens, and then we have the proper processes and accountability after the fact when it does happen,” she said. “We have to accept the fact that digital is here to stay."