UK intelligence agency MI5 reportedly terminated a failed multimillion-dollar IT project to centralize the agency’s data stores. The system was supposed to be ready ahead of last year’s London Olympics, but the consultants hired by MI5 failed to deliver.
The new digital records management (RM) system was supposed to
allow for search queries and returns of various MI5 data and
records, from intelligence reports to older paper archives. The RM
was intended to replace the existing system, which the agency has
deemed outdated and unfit in light of the threats the country
currently faces.
The new RM was supposed to go online by time the Summer Olympics
began in London last year, in order to help the UK’s intelligence
agencies identify possible terrorist threats to the games. But in
July 2012, only weeks before the event, MI5 fired the IT consulting
firm responsible for the system’s development, as it had failed to
meet deadlines.
Then-director of MI5 Sir Jonathan Evans said the system would be
implemented at a later date, and the agency hired new IT
consultants to finish the job.
But according to the Independent, the project failed to play
out, and earlier this year Evans decided to scrap it altogether and
restart from scratch with a new generation of IT specialists. The
newspaper reported that the abandonment of years of progress means
the loss of about £90 million pounds (about $140 million). The UK’s
Home Office would not comment on either the fate of the project or
the reported loss figure.
In 2012, when the RM’s troubles were first revealed, some
British media estimated the cost of the project to be considerably
lower; the Daily Mail believed the program’s cost to be about £1
million (over $1.5 million).
This article originally appeared on : RT