Deputy-Ombudsman Jussi Pajuoja has criticised the Ministry of the Interior, the National Police Board and ICT Agency HALTIK for delays in implementing VITJA, a key information system project of the police.
 
According to Pajuoja, due consideration was not give to the views of the Parliament's Audit Committee in the planning and implementation of the project. Additionally, joint information management in the preparation of the VITJA system and the judicial administration's AIPA system has not proceeded as required by the Audit Committee. 

- In the absence of new information systems, the criminal procedure remains unnecessarily long, which is problematic in terms of oversight of legality, says Pajuoja. It also poses the risk of undermining the quality of criminal procedures and preconditions for a fair trial.

The contract with the supplier was terminated in June 2014, and preparations for a new bidding process as well as steps following it were launched. The reform is needed urgently, as the old systems have reached the end of their life span, and the systems of different authorities are incompatible.

Too extensive a project

Deputy-Ombudsman Pajuoja finds that the project was too extensive and complex to be implemented simultaneously. He considers that the project should have been divided into stages from the start, as has now been done.

- In the preparation of the reform, many issues that play an essential role for legal protection and information security received little attention, including user rights and the logging system, Pajuoja observes.

It was also unclear how issues related to the life span of data were to be solved, including archiving and the deletion of outdated data.

The Parliament aspired for a shared system

As early as in 2011, the Audit Committee stressed the importance of implementing a shared system for the administrative branches of the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of the Interior, where information entered by one authority will only be recorded in the system once and where other authorities will have access to it.

The Audit Committee found that the systems should be developed in seamless cooperation, ensuring that the greatest possible benefits can be obtained and that no overlapping functionalities will be created. The system's implementation schedule also was to reflect the entry into force of the Criminal Investigations Act and legislation on coercive measures.

Delays bring multiple problems

As the project was delayed, the Audit Committee noted that several years and millions of euros had been wasted while failing to obtain the targeted efficiency benefits, and delays in the VITJA project also impacted on the schedule of the judicial administration's AIPA project.

Another consequence of the delay was a necessity to update the old police information system to meet the requirements of new police legislation and the reform of the police organisation.

More difficulties arise from the fact that the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Justice went their separate ways in the bidding processes. Instead of obtaining synergy benefits from a joint bidding process, it will now be necessary to tackle compatibility and communication issues between information systems built on different platforms.

Deputy-Ombudsman Pajuoja will conduct inspections and also use other means to ensure continued monitoring of the progress made with the VITJA project. He requested that the Ministry of the Interior submit a statement on the project's progress by 15 January 2016.

The full text of Deputy-Ombudsman Jussi Pajuoja's decision no 4765/2/13 (in Finnish). Further information is available from Principal Legal Adviser Jorma Kuopus, tel. +358 (0)9 432 3385.