The age of technology: what can we learn from Covid-19?
The current situation has highlighted the need for support from the entire public sector, whether in hospitals, through banks, or behind the scenes with information technology.
In this time of quarantine, necessary due to the serious threat posed by Covid-19, the federal government is trying to mitigate the effects of this pandemic, even with the controversial policy of downsizing the state. It is crucial that we reflect on the government's role in combating the pandemic, what tools are available, and how to use the technology that is increasingly making a difference in our daily lives.
We are tragically discovering that government involvement in people's lives needs to be more efficient. This moment has highlighted that the population needs support from the entire public sector, whether in hospitals, through banks, or behind the scenes with information technology, which is mistakenly seen as a cost and not as a valuable investment in the information age.
One of the federal public companies threatened with privatization due to this prospect of reducing the State's presence, the Federal Data Processing Service – Serpro –, has been providing relevant services to citizens and the government itself for over 50 years, and at this moment it is becoming even more present with assertive actions in the fight against the coronavirus, with operational support to the federal government, being a public company that is subordinate to the Ministry of Economy.
Serpro has the social and strategic role of providing technological and communication solutions aimed at making life easier for Brazilians and even enabling them to receive essential resources and information for health and public safety professionals. Due to its legal nature, this multi-award-winning company, recognized for the quality of its services, hires its professionals through public competitive examinations and is exempt from bidding processes, which ensures greater agility in the hiring process by the government, thus effectively establishing a governmental relationship.
Several proposals have been made throughout its nearly 56 years of existence. Some suggest that Serpro should be included in the general federal budget without receiving direct payment for the services it provides to the government, instead receiving resources to pay its staff and invest in infrastructure, thus expanding its service capacity and generating billions of reais in savings. This is because the federal public administration has thousands of contracts in force with public and private companies; the idea would be to manage all sensitive information, data centers, and government systems. Others believe that the public company should continue as it is, since it is recognized as the largest public technology company in Latin America and one of the largest in the world. However, there is a minority that advocates for its privatization, but they are hindered by the importance of the business and the strategic confidentiality of the information, as Serpro processes practically all government revenue systems, in addition to holding information on foreign trade, income tax, CPF (Brazilian taxpayer ID), driver's licenses, the system that controls payments, and hundreds of other products that serve the Brazilian state. A key factor is that the state-owned company continues to perform its work whether or not it receives payment for its services, which would not happen if it were a private company that could simply terminate a contract, causing billions in losses to the country with just a few hours of downtime. It's worth remembering that all developed countries in the world have similar agencies that handle the government's technological support, so we are dealing with a rather unique issue that deserves our full attention.
Following the guidelines of the WHO (World Health Organization), several companies and public bodies have adopted this modality. Home OfficeThis has become possible because Serpro, through its secure and high-performance network, has been providing all the necessary support and infrastructure to government agencies in an agile and efficient manner, ensuring that the state apparatus functions and continues to provide full assistance to users of services offered by the federal government.
This article aims to highlight the importance of information technology and to spark a debate on how the state has been helping in the fight against this pandemic by using already available resources and strengthening the relationship between the state and society. In the last week, consistent information has emerged that has been reported in the media, and it is worth highlighting some actions by area of operation.
TAX SYSTEMS
PGFN - Attorney General's Office of the National Treasury
Through the Parameterized Installment System (SISPAR) developed by Serpro for the PGFN (Attorney General's Office for the National Treasury), the federal government adopted a set of measures for renegotiating and suspending debt collection actions against the public treasury by taxpayers. The parameterized installment system made it possible for taxpayers to enroll in the installment plan only one day after the measure was published.
National Treasury Secretariat
SIAFI - Financial Aid to States and Municipalities. In order to comply with Provisional Measure 928 of April 2, 2020, in which the government establishes financial aid for states and municipalities to replenish their revenues, tests are underway with Banco do Brasil to carry out the transfers and planning is in place to begin the implementation phase of the data transmission solution for Banco do Brasil to operationalize the transfer.
Banks (Caixa, BB, Banco Amazônia and Banco do Nordeste)
Making the Datavalid security system available to support the identification of beneficiaries of the Emergency Basic Income Program, preventing fraud.
Brazil's federal revenue
Processing CPF numbers to eliminate inconsistencies so that the population can access government assistance programs.
PUBLIC MANAGEMENT - Secretariat for Coordination and Governance of Federal Assets
Client notified on 03/17/2020 about the exceptional remote service regime, as a measure to combat the Coronavirus pandemic. Deliverables completed: Parameterization of session time in SIAPA; Analytical panel of SISREI - Assignment of Properties for Special Use;
Analytical panel for property rentals in the SIASG system; Analytical panel for vacant properties to house field hospitals (COVID-19). Delivery of the prototype process flow for electronic bidding for property sales.
Commercial Boards
Biovalid: postponement of validation fees during the pandemic has already been implemented.
INFRASTRUCTURE
Ministry of Infrastructure – DENATRAN
During this pandemic, Serpro offered a 60-day trial of the SNE (National Electronic Notification System) to the 12 Detrans (State Traffic Departments) that had not yet adopted the solution, as a measure to promote digital transformation. This approach was praised by both Denatran (National Traffic Department) and the Detrans, who have already made contact to carry out the procedures for system integration. The measures impacting the systems hosted by Serpro have already been incorporated into demands for application adaptation, some of which have already been implemented in a production environment.
Ministry of Infrastructure – SAC
Control point meetings with the Civil Aviation Secretariat continue to take place normally via video through Serpro's infrastructure, without hindering the progress of activities.
Ministry of Citizenship
Serpro has made NEOID digital certificates available in a test model to some secretaries of the Ministry of Health, to address an emergency in that Ministry. Serpro is currently conducting consulting services to map and diagnose the ETL processes of the Ministry of Citizenship. A new contract for a fiber optic network will expand the broadband capacity of the ministry, which needs to exchange information more quickly and securely.
HEALTH
Health Portal (saude.gov.br). Emergency actions were carried out to support the
DATASUS is stabilizing its portal, which suffered high overload due to handling cases related to the coronavirus. Serpro increased the internet link bandwidth from 500MB to 10GB and supported DATASUS in analyzing its environment, improving stability. Despite the stability, as requested by DATASUS, actions are being taken between DATASUS, SERPRO, ASCOM, SGD, and SEME to migrate support and hosting to Serpro.
Serpro prepared a presentation for the Ministry of Health to assist them in analyzing sentiment on social media regarding the coronavirus and related issues, through the Social Media Information Center (Coronavirus).
Another proposed technical solution has been developed for Digital Medical Certificates and Prescriptions. It's a faster and more efficient version of the Brazilian Unified Health System (SUS).
In addition to everything mentioned, Serpro, fulfilling its social role as a public body, also made the following decisions:
1- Waiver of the minimum franchise fee for 90 days to help small businesses impacted by the crisis;
2- Postponing the collection of invoices to alleviate cash flow problems for companies;
3 - Provision of remote access service (VPN) for some clients.
After so much information, it's possible to measure the negative impact of a potential privatization of this technology giant. Currently, in Brasília alone, Serpro's optical network, in operation for 15 years, serves more than 80 government agencies and entities and has 209 locations connected to the network. Similarly, services continue to be provided throughout Brazil, teaching us that being connected takes us further.
Serpro Management Report
* This is an opinion article, the responsibility of the author, and does not reflect the opinion of Brasil 247.