NT Police internal computer system PROMIS on last legs

THE faltering and ageing police internal computer software PROMIS will not be replaced for at least 18 months despite its latest system failure crippling communications

NT Police Association is making calls to fast track the installation of a new internal police computer system. PICTURE: Tom Schmucker

THE faltering and ageing police internal computer software PROMIS will not be replaced for at least 18 months despite its latest system failure crippling communications.

The software, which gives cops on the beat vital background information on potential suspects, crashed for four days in June.

The NT News understands the 17-year-old software has been patched up for four years, but the latest breakdown renewed NT Police Association calls to fast track the installation of a new system.

Communication staff were forced to take hand-written notes from police on the ground during the outage which took a week to input into the software when it came online.

During the initial stages of the blackout, police could not access the firearms registry or complete standard background checks.

The Giles Government put $1 million towards patching up the ageing system in this year’s Budget.

The NT News understands the Australian Federal Police (AFP) version of PROMIS cost in the region of $100 million.

A spokesman for Chief Minister Adam Giles said a re-elected CLP government would allocate $40 million for new software in the 2017-18 financial year.

Opposition Leader and Shadow Police Minister Michael Gunner would not commit a dollar amount to replacement of the software.

Mr Gunner said a review of the PROMIS system would be a priority.

Police Association President Paul McCue said that the software failure was “embarrassing” for police.

He wrote to the CLP and Labor outlining the urgency required to update the software but was yet to hear a response from either party.

“They have known about it for some years. There’s a requirement to replace the system and there’s been no money allocated in the budget which is disappointing,” he said.

“We have had Police Association meetings in different regions and particularly in one of those meetings it was voiced extremely strongly that they were disappointed by the lack of communication by the PROMIS failure.”

Police Chief Information Officer John Labou said the Territory did not require the same complex system that the AFP did.

The aspects of the software which failed had since been replaced, he said.

“In my opinion, the likelihood of us having a failure – the same one that we had last time – has been reduced because we’ve replaced those things that failed,” he said.

“We think it is very stable at the moment but it is 17 years old, the system itself. The new hardware we’ve got should last us a few years but there are a lot of moving parts on this so we are keen to replace it. But we are confident.

“The biggest concern we had up to now was around the infrastructure fragility and we believe we’ve addressed that piece of it.”