Business Information Systems Of United Kingdom Passport Agency

Question

Task:
Case Study: United Kingdom Passport Agency
The United Kingdom Passport Agency was established as an Executive Agency of the Home Office in April 1991. Its main aim was to provide passport services for British nationals in the United Kingdom promptly and economically. In 1998–99, the Agency employed an average of almost 1,800 staff in its passport offices in Belfast, Glasgow, Liverpool, London, Newport and Peterborough. The Agency’s financial objective is to recover, via the passport fee, the full cost of passport services; the full cost includes the cost of non-fee bearing consular services provided by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to UK citizens abroad. In July 1996 the United Kingdom Passport Agency decided to introduce the idea of digital passports in an attempt to minimise the risk of fraudulent use of passports. To do this the agency needed to replace its existing ICT system. It was envisaged that this would be done through a private finance initiative or outsourcing contract. The contractor bids were received in April 1997 and in June of that year a 10-year PFI contract was awarded to The Stationery Office (now Security Printing and Systems limited) for the printing and dispatching of digital passports, valued at 120 million GBP. In July of 1997 the Agency awarded a 10-year PFI contract for a similar value of 120 million GBP to Siemens Business Services for the collection, storage and transmission of passport application data. This included the development of a new ICT system for this purpose. In April 1998 an announcement was made that from October of that year children not already on their parents’ passport would require their own passports to travel abroad. In October 1998 the new information system (ICT system and procedures, including those outsourced) were introduced in the Agency’s Liverpool office. One hundred Agency staff transferred over to Siemens. In November of the same year the new information system was rolled-out at the Newport office. Ninety-six staff transferred over to Siemens at this office. During the following summer of 1999 a number of problems were experienced by the Passport Agency. Over a half a million British citizens were less than happy to discover that their new passports could not be issued on time for them to take their holiday. In June 1999, processing times for passport applications were taking up to 50 working days. Emergency measures were introduced by the Home Office in July 1999 – including free two-year extensions to passports. Coupled with a downturn in applications, these measures helped bring maximum processing times back within the Agency’s 10 working day target by the end of August. However, the Home Office had to pay millions in compensation to citizens and in staff overtime required for managing the backlog of applications. This information systems failure appears to have been due to a number of factors. The change in the law on child passports was introduced at roughly the same time as the introduction of the new information system. The change in legislation caused a significant increase in the volume of applications for the Summer of 1999. In May of that year, monthly output was 619,000 compared to a peak of 564,000 in the previous year. By June, the Passport Agency had around 565,000 applications still awaiting processing. The introduction of a new passport processing system in two of the Agency’s six offices was exacerbated by a failure to assess and test adequately the time needed by staff to learn and work the new passport processing system. The new system involved changes in clerical and administrative processes as well as computerisation. A four-month delay before the start of testing the new system, and testing its impact on productivity was not completed before it went live in late 1998. There was insufficient contingency planning in the event that implementation of the new system might not go according to plan. Despite the Passport Agency’s experience of the flawed roll-out of its previous computer system in 1989, the agency launched the new system in its largest offices, Liverpool and Newport, which accounted for half its normal processing capacity. The strategy adopted by the Agency in early 1999 to get through the busy season rested on its past experience that it would be able to increase output by increasing overtime and hiring casual staff. A recovery plan was agreed between the Agency and the Home Office in March, including the recruitment of extra staff. However, the Agency did not foresee the loss in public confidence, which led to a sharp increase in applications and enquiries about them, once the delays attracted publicity. The agency was also criticised in its failure to communicate effectively with the public, both at a personal level in dealing with calls from the public to its telephone enquiry bureau, and more generally via the media. A National Audit Office Inquiry (NAO, 1999) estimated that the cost of the additional measures taken by the Agency to deal with the failures during the year from October 1998 was around 12.6 million GBP, including 6 million GBP for additional staffing. The contract allowed Siemens to take responsibility for the risk associated with design and delivery of the system. However, the risk associated with business continuity remained with the Passport Agency. As a result the agency incurred extra costs of 12.6 million GBP, with Siemens paying just 2.45 million GBP, spread over several years. Not surprisingly, the Inquiry highlighted a number of important lessons. First, the need for proper testing of new systems before committing to live operation. Second, for staff to be adequately trained in the use of new ICT systems and in new procedures required. Third, the need to have realistic contingency plans in place. Fourth, the need, when service delivery is threatened, to have the capability to keep the public well informed.
Tasks
• Elaborate the importance of business information systems, in achieving the goals of United Kingdom passport agency and address the issues, which may occur if the system was to be updated in 2020.
• Develop an upgrade plan of the business information system of the United Kingdom passport agency, considering the following key requirements:
 o Computational requirements
 o Processing requirements
• Using the internet as a resource, critically analayse the possible database systems,which could be employed by the agency for data management and decision making

Answer

Introduction
With continuous changes and development of consumer requirements and preferences, companies that can bring innovative business information systems and new technologies can survive in market as well as continue to conduct business in accordance with customer requirements. The implementation of IS can advantage companies and help control external and internal processes. Business IS can be successfully implemented to help employees and employers to better communicate. This report discuss the importance of business information systems, in achieving the goals of United Kingdom passport agency and address the issues, which may occur if the system was to be updated in 2020.

How business information systems are important in achieving the goals of United Kingdom passport agency and address the issues, which may occur if the system was to be updated in 2020?
IS work superior by storing files and documents in the folders that employees can access and share? This makes sure that flow of data among the lower-level workers and management is monitored. This also makes front-line workers part of decision-making; therefore they can feel motivated or determined to perform their tasks [1]. The importance of IS has greatly increased, as well as most companies have been also prompted to introducing it to maintain a competitive advantage. Today, without effective information systems, no one can think of a company.

This data includes monthly and weekly workload, book lists, agency recruitment summary, and statistical information about agency personnel. The PIERS is a set of desktop and web applications that provides query or management functions for the passport record, consular foreign birth reports (CRBA), marriage certificates (CWM), and death records (ROD), Advanced Searcher (AF), Foreign and OTS, and PCZ data. It runs on the OpenNet network of the US State Department. (The OpenNet network is the internal network or intranet of the US State Department.) PIERS provides access to OpenNet users located at the passport agencies, foreign post offices, the State Department, state directorate offices, furthermore record services, or also provides indirect access to outer users throughout the unified database of the consulate (CCD).

Develop an upgrade plan of the business information system of the United Kingdom passport agency, considering the following key requirements:
Computational requirements: Upgrading business information systems is an essential process that each successful association must implement. This procedure can exist, informal or formal, no matter where the company uses IT. As this will need UK Passport agency to be a consumer of many different vendors, procedure of upgrading IS involve a lot of management skills as well as requires them to have relevant knowledge before becoming familiar with this topic [2].

The information system in UK Passport agency enterprise not only upgrade their hardware, but also upgrade their operating systems, telecommunications service providers, applications and equipment purchased from external providers. Executives of large companies responsible for the upgrade process care about making the process more efficient, and for this purpose, tools such as purchase cards and EDI will be used. In addition, they are also committed to reducing the contract cycle time and utilizes several tracking system to handle business assets.

This information is used to generate management reports specific to US passport agencies and personnel, which describes passport workload statistics and performance. This data includes monthly and weekly workloads, book lists, agency recruitment summaries, or statistical information about agency personnel processing passports. This information is shared internally within the Consular Bureau, including passport agencies and passport service bureaus, and the Diplomatic Security Bureau. CA MIS obtains passport information from TDIS and PLOTS systems to generate various management reports. CA MIS interacts with UMWS to obtain the access level restriction function of user rights that is only used for authorized roles. CA MIS does not share information externally.

Various technical controls have been implemented to prevent, detect and prevent misuse of individually identifiable data. From a moment the official user attempts to validate to State Council network and the corresponding application, it will be monitored. From then on, any changes to the data (whether authorized or not) will be recorded. According to the State Council Security Configuration Guide, the CA MIS audit function is also allow to track following events on host OSmoreover back-end database server: multiple login failures; login after work or abnormal time; failed attempt to perform the program Or access reports; add, delete, or modify user and program access permissions; or changes to file access limitations [3].

Processing requirements
If UK Passport agency is allowing for upgrading its business IS, it is best to have dedicated employees to supervise the process. This team or person will be necessary to preserve an inventory of each of the assets of the enterprise and conduct routine inspections of equipment. Additionally, they will call for to determine the equipment’s that require to be upgraded and the stage of urgency. They have to interact with the suppliers to make sure that UK Passport agency obtain the most value for innovative purchases and that the innovative equipment can meet all the needs of UK Passport agency.

This will also affect all further purchases and discards. UK Passport agency also has to update constantly the upgrade plan based on the current business model and goals. To access CA MIS, an individual must be an authorized user of an unclassified internal network of the State Council. This requires background checks and approval from supervisors and information system security officers. Each authorized user must sign a user access agreement / rule of behavior before obtaining a user account [4]. Authorized users have been issued with a personal authentication / public access card (PIV / CAC) and personal identification number (PIN), which meets the two-factor authentication requirements for federated system access and is required for login. Access to CA MIS is based on roles and restricted based on approved job responsibilities, and requires the consent of the management staff. Access control lists allow restricting the categories of information and reports. The information system security officer determines the level of access required by users (including managers) to ensure that this level is related to the user’s specific job function and authority level. Routine monitoring, testing and evaluation of security controls to ensure that safeguards continue to operate as expected. Many security controls implemented to prevent unauthorized users from using or accessing information include: access enforcement, segregation of duties, audit review, least privilege, reporting and analysis, organization of user identification and authentication, IS monitoring, and Numerous media controls. The data Integrity Branch (IIB) provide administrative life cycle safety protection for State Council’sIT systems as well as information resources. During the system evaluation and authorization process, compliance with these guidelines will be verified. CA MIS uses Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol TCP/IP for data transmission on the network. The data in transit is encrypted [5].

Using the internet as a resource, critically analayse the possible database systems, which could be employed by the agency for data management and decision making
For UK Passport agency hierarchical DBMS model is appropriate, the information is in the parent-child relationships node. In the hierarchical database, additionally to the definite data, the proof contains data about its child / parent relationship team.The data is stored as a collection of the fields, where every field only contains one value. Records are associated to each other throughout a child-parent relationship [7].

Parents can have multiple children.
To retrieve the data for a field, UK Passport agency need to traverse every tree until UK Passport agency find a record. UK Passport agency hierarchy is easy; it’s not flexible because of the one-to-several relationship between father and son. Hierarchical databases are commonly used in the telecommunications and banking businesses to build high-performance or availability applications. IBM IMS or Windows Registry is two famous examples of the hierarchical databases.

Document Databases 
Document DB is also a NoSQL databases that stores information in a form of document. Every document represents information, its relationship among the other data factors, and the attributes of the data. The document database stores data in the key-value form. Document DB has recently become famous because of its storage of document as well as NoSQL properties. NoSQL data storage provides a quick mechanism to search and store documents [8].

Conclusion
In conclusion, MIS retrieves data from various department databases and allows users to plan as well as run reports depend on the system privileges. MIS do not include and report PII of passport applicants, but only allows users of department to aggregate statistical information about requested, issued / rejected passports, expiration dates and similar information. It has also been concluded that UK Passport agency can quickly access and update the hierarchical database. Its model structure is just like a tree, and the relationship among records is predefined. This element is the double-edged sword.

References
[1]N. Bajgoric, "Operating systems course in a business information systems curriculum", International Journal of Business Information Systems, vol. 20, no. 1, p. 1, 2015. Available: 10.1504/ijbis.2015.070886.

[2]N. Bajgoric, "Operating systems course in a business information systems curriculum", International Journal of Business Information Systems, vol. 20, no. 1, p. 1, 2015. Available: 10.1504/ijbis.2015.070886 [Accessed 3 April 2020].

[3]A. El Manouar and W. El Hilali, "Sustainability through information systems: how can information systems lead to sustainable business models", International Journal of Business Information Systems, vol. 33, no. 2, p. 225, 2020. Available: 10.1504/ijbis.2020.10026831.

[4]A. El Manouar and W. El Hilali, "Sustainability through information systems: how can information systems lead to sustainable business models", International Journal of Business Information Systems, vol. 33, no. 2, p. 225, 2020. Available: 10.1504/ijbis.2020.10026831 [Accessed 3 April 2020].

[5]G. Neumann, S. Sobernig and M. Aram, "Evolutionary Business Information Systems", Business & Information Systems Engineering, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 33-38, 2014. Available: 10.1007/s12599-013-0305-1.

[6]G. Neumann, S. Sobernig and M. Aram, "Evolutionary Business Information Systems", Business & Information Systems Engineering, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 33-38, 2014. Available: 10.1007/s12599-013-0305-1 [Accessed 3 April 2020].

[7]L. Staehr, "Understanding the role of managerial agency in achieving business benefits from ERP systems", Information Systems Journal, vol. 20, no. 3, pp. 213-238, 2010. Available: 10.1111/j.1365-2575.2008.00316.x [Accessed 3 April 2020].

[8]W. Thomas, "Neuronal data storage using document oriented databases", Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience, vol. 6, 2012. Available: 10.3389/conf.fncom.2012.55.00264 [Accessed 3 April 2020].