The Paper Chase: Managing Files with Radio Frequency Identification Technology in Government

Introduction: The Paper Chase

We’ve all seen it. Despite our push for “paperless offices” and the wonders of pdf files and the ability to store and back-up terabytes of information, all our work, all our projects, and indeed, all our lives, often come down to the ability to find a simple folder – the one that is critical to us at the time. For all government agencies – from giant federal departments in Washington, DC to the police departments in the smallest communities – manila folders are omnipresent, central to how they operate – even in the era of e-Government. File a claim, there’s a folder. Make a complaint, there’s a folder. Need a project approved, there’s a folder. Commit a crime, there’s a folder. You get the picture.

The Real Cost of Lost Files

File management is a critical issue for any public sector agency to operate effectively. And much of the time, government workers are unable to find the file they need when they need it, causing not just a headache for the staff but, more importantly, a service delivery failure that can have very real consequences and costs for citizens. Recent studies have shown that the average public sector office worker spends several hours each week simply searching for critical files and documents. In fact, current estimates say file searching consumes between 8% and 12% of the average employee‘s workday – costing taxpayers billions of dollars in lost productivity of government workers. Indeed, one analyst categorized the situation as one of “naked inefficiency,” as not only is there wasted productivity, but also additional costs incurred from having to recreate lost files and litigation stemming from lost files. And this is in normal times. In the past few years, we have also had high profile reminders that both negligent acts of humans and “acts of God” can wreak havoc with government file management.

According to an October 2006 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, staff in fourteen of the busiest district offices of the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) had lost track of well over 100,000 files of non-US citizens. These fourteen offices not only handle over two-thirds of all non-citizen naturalization cases, but also maintain files on all individuals detained at the US border. The problem was so bad that an audit of the agency’s San Diego district office found that over 20% of the district’s files were not in the location shown in the computerized file management system. The report uncovered the fact that US citizenships had been granted to over 30,000 individuals whose files had been lost in the USCIS system, including at least one man with documented ties to the Islamic militant group Hezbollah. This caused a firestorm of controversy on Capitol Hill, with Susan Collins (R-Maine) calling it “unthinkable” that the US would grant citizenship to a potential terrorist “simply because they can’t find the person’s file.”