Why is it that as soon as the word “government” is applied to a software project the cost multiplies massively and suddenly the project costs “millions”, runs over schedule, and usually doesn’t work when delivered.
A few months ago my wife and I saw a local lad break into a car and steal a wallet. A couple of weeks ago we were asked to go to the police station to do an identity parade. When we arrived we were told that unfortunately the “new” identity system had crashed and we wouldn’t be able to take part that day.
Today we went for another try. Again the police apologised and told us that the system was not working and we wouldn’t be able to take part in an identity parade. I was slightly annoyed by the incompetence of the IT people. I mean, why wasn’t the old system being used in parallel just in case of situations just like this? It’s not even as though they need to capture data and keep it in sync’, it’s just a video selection of 8 people + 1 suspect looking forward, left, then right.
Just as I had finished telling them how rubbish their new IT system is a police officer popped his head around the door with a big happy smile on his face and said “It’s okay, the file has arrived, we can continue!” After a little rejoicing I went and sat down at the computer in front of the most simple looking software application I think I have ever seen.
After sitting in front of it watching 9 blonde hair Caucasians looking forward, left, then right I was asked if I was able to identify the culprit. “No,” I replied, “the guy was Asian with black hair!”. The head office had obviously sent down the wrong set of videos for this case. Thankfully in this case the error was obvious, but what if they had sent down videos of 9 young Asian males? The error wouldn’t have been obvious and the guy would have got away with it!
Just a simple safeguard such as embedding the case number into the binary file and asking the officer to type in the expected case number for confirmation would have done the trick. Surely SOMEONE at some point must have considered an officer might be sent the wrong file, or open a file from the wrong email?
I can’t help but wonder how much they paid for that software. I could have easily written all of it within a month and it would have worked just fine. Unbelievable!