Minister Bernard Quintin of the Interior terminates the 299 million euro contract for the digitisation of the police services. “There are no tangible results”. Supplier Sopra Steria is declared in default.
I-Police was supposed to bring together data from some 80 sources and applications on a powerful platform but this ambition was never materialised. The contract awarded to Sopra Steria in 2021 by the then Minister of the Interior, Annelies Verlinden, yielded nothing. ‘After a thorough evaluation, I have decided to discontinue the project,’ said Quentin.
In May 2023, the project was already criticised in an audit carried out by Deloitte. The audit denounced that the ambitious project was too fragmented and needed more centralised management. In March last year, the police leadership took drastic action by sidelining the DRI – the federal police department responsible for police information and ICT resources – and appointing an external programme manager to the project. But even that intervention proved unsuccessful.
From now on, the police will focus on smaller-scale projects. Sopra Steria has already received more than 75 million euros, but not everything is lost. For example, the “Focus” project allows various databases to be consulted on a smartphone.
