When government technology fails, we tend to imagine a dramatic cyberattack or a major outage. Yet, some of government’s greatest technology risks are far less visible. They’re the systems that still work.
Legacy systems are still processing tax returns, managing health benefits, issuing driver’s licenses or maintaining court records. They may continue to work good enough, getting the job done (for the most part), so unless there is a catastrophic failure, it’s easy to justify their existence. But the catastrophic failure could be right around the corner.
Legacy systems quietly accumulate technical debt, are often not protected from the new security vulnerabilities that crop up daily, nor are they equipped to comply with changing regulations. And it goes far beyond the obvious. Systems that are susceptible to data breaches, or that are slow and crash easily, erode trust among the citizens they serve. While agencies continue to depend on them to deliver essential services, the longer they remain in operation, the more expensive and disruptive modernization becomes.
Consider three ways that outdated systems are creating problems for government agencies.
The Citizen Experience
If someone renews a driver’s license online, applies for unemployment benefits, pays a property tax bill or submits a permit application, they expect the experience to be straightforward. They don’t want to understand the tech behind it; they simply want it to work in the most straightforward and fast way possible. But behind many government websites are layers of technology that can be decades old – designed for a different era in computing.
These systems can be difficult to integrate with newer platforms. Data may be trapped in silos. Processes that could be automated may still require manual intervention. And even seemingly simple changes can require specialized expertise.
The Employee Workaround
Often, employees compensate for limitations in old systems by creating spreadsheets, maintaining separate databases, manually moving information between applications and developing workarounds that may never be formally documented. Over time, however, they become the organization’s operating model.
A process that should be automated becomes manual. A report that should be generated instantly requires hours of preparation. Information that should be available across departments remains locked inside individual systems. The technology may technically be functioning. The organization, however, is functioning around the technology. And citizens ultimately feel the impact, with longer wait times, repeated requests, crashing systems, and more phone calls and in-person visits.
How can government improve the citizen experience? They can modernize the infrastructure underneath it.
Yet, many government agencies depend on employees who have spent years—or even decades—learning systems that few others understand. They know the architecture, the workarounds, and which processes can’t be changed without breaking something else. Much of that knowledge may not even be documented. As experienced employees retire or leave government, agencies risk losing not just personnel but institutional knowledge about how critical systems actually operate.
The Problems with Compliance
Legacy technology also creates challenges around security, privacy, and compliance. Many older systems were never designed for today’s threat environment or regulatory expectations. Agencies have had to layer new security controls onto old architectures, sometimes creating complex environments that are difficult to monitor and manage. The challenge isn’t necessarily that every legacy system is inherently insecure. It is that maintaining modern security and compliance capabilities around outdated architecture can become increasingly difficult and expensive.
Likewise, data governance presents a similar problem. A government agency must be able to easily determine where sensitive information resides and track who has access to it. Often, legacy systems were never designed to do that.
Breaking Up is Hard to Do
Despite the risk, it’s not easy to transition from IT systems that have always been around. It takes time to train staff on new systems; it can be difficult to know where to begin; and citizen applications need to be available while modernization occurs. Yet, modernization doesn’t mean throwing everything away and starting over. It means making slow and incremental improvements and following key best practices:
Triage the troublemakers. Identify the systems presenting the greatest operational and security risks and work with a service provider to develop a clear roadmap for moving forward. This might mean modernizing high-impact processes first and introducing application programming interfaces (APIs) and integrations to systems for data sharing.
Capture institutional knowledge. Employees who grew up with the existing systems are among the most valuable sources of knowledge. It’s important to capture from them vital information about the current systems, the workflow, and how they have evolved so that new systems can work to improve the process without throwing away key lessons learned, and ensuring users continue to have a seamless experience. Modernization provides an opportunity to capture institutional knowledge, simplify processes, and transition from person-dependent systems to more sustainable, documented and supportable environments.
Use data analytics. To help prioritize modernization efforts, agencies should understand how citizens interact with their websites and which parts of the digital journey are most problematic for users. Monitoring and analyzing user data allows agencies to create better experiences, tailoring digital content and services to the needs of specific user groups.
Take a collaborative approach. Ultimately, the success of modernization efforts will require collaboration between agencies, the public sector and private industry. Data interoperability and streamlined workflows will be essential for ensuring the efficiency and effectiveness of solutions.
Every government agency faces competing priorities and limited budgets that make modernization efforts a challenge. But legacy technology doesn’t become less risky because an agency chooses not to address it. In many cases, the opposite is true. Skills become harder to find, integrations become more complicated, security threats evolve and institutional knowledge leaves with long-time employees – It’s a waiting game that simply carries too much risk.
Reach out to INVID today to learn how we can help set you on the path to modernization.