The Register carries a story this week that clearly shows  the impact of poor quality information on people, particularly in this time of tightening economic conditions when getting a job is hard enough.

It appears that the French Government’s Police Vetting database is not very complete or accurate. According to the French Data Protection authorities (CNIL), this highlights the

serious issues over the provenance of data illustrate all too clearly what happens when the government starts to collect data on its citizens without putting adequate measures in place for updating and accuracy checking.

It would appear that there are errors in 83% of records, with a range of degrees of seriousness. The errors in the database arise as a result of “the simple mechanism of mis-recording actual verifiable data”. In other words, poorly designed processes,  poorly designed data creation/maintenance processes, poorly trained staff, and a lack of information quality control contribute to the errors.

But what  of the cost to the French economy? Well, every person who has been blacklisted in error by this system is potentially drawing social security payments. On top of that they are not paying taxes into the French economy.

If, in a month, they are drawing €100 in social insurance instead of paying €100 in taxes, the net loss to the French economy is €200 per month.  €200 x 1Million =€200 million per month, or €2,400,000,000 per year.

So, on the basis of a very rough guesstimate, the value to the French economy of fixing these errors is €2.4billion per year. Is that a business case?