With data going back a century, it took Swedish Customs officials almost five years to find a digital archiving system that met their needs.
Back in 2015, the Swedish Customs Agency embarked on a unique project to digitally archive all of its records. This agency is in charge of collecting custom duties and monitoring international traffic across the Swedish border. It is also responsible for facilitating commercial links between Sweden and non-EU countries, while stopping criminals from smuggling illegal goods in and out of the country. Therefore, finding a digital archiving solution that met all of its needs without exceeding the budget proved to be a protracted process. Until they looked into eArchiving, that is.
"We didn't have a functioning digital archiving [system] to be able to archive digital information," Magnus Wåhlberg, Swedish Customs Information Architect, told CEF. "We did an internal analysis, and compared different approaches, and the conclusion was that it was much better to use open-source."
The CEF eArchiving Building Block, one of the many digital resources developed under the auspices of the European Commission's Connecting Europe Facility (CEF), made it much easier for the Swedish Customs to implement a new digital archiving system. In addition to providing a range of open-source software systems and components, eArchiving also comes with tangible benefits, such as lower maintenance costs, and the option to increase or lower the number of functionalities (depending on the project's needs). Also a plus for Swedish officials, is the fact that eArchiving wasn't created for financial gain.
"Many IT companies have short-term goals," said Mr Wåhlberg. "They want to earn money, say, for the next three years, so they really don't care about long-term preservation. They want to give you some type of quick-fix and say 'ok, this is a digital archiving solution'. But we are dealing with data that goes back 100 years."
With data going back a century, it took Swedish Customs officials almost five years to find a digital archiving system that met their needs.
Back in 2015, the Swedish Customs Agency embarked on a unique project to digitally archive all of its records. This agency is in charge of collecting custom duties and monitoring international traffic across the Swedish border. It is also responsible for facilitating commercial links between Sweden and non-EU countries, while stopping criminals from smuggling illegal goods in and out of the country. Therefore, finding a digital archiving solution that met all of its needs without exceeding the budget proved to be a protracted process. Until they looked into eArchiving, that is.
"We didn't have a functioning digital archiving [system] to be able to archive digital information," Magnus Wåhlberg, Swedish Customs Information Architect, told CEF. "We did an internal analysis, and compared different approaches, and the conclusion was that it was much better to use open-source."
The CEF eArchiving Building Block, one of the many digital resources developed under the auspices of the European Commission's Connecting Europe Facility (CEF), made it much easier for the Swedish Customs to implement a new digital archiving system. In addition to providing a range of open-source software systems and components, eArchiving also comes with tangible benefits, such as lower maintenance costs, and the option to increase or lower the number of functionalities (depending on the project's needs). Also a plus for Swedish officials, is the fact that eArchiving wasn't created for financial gain.
"Many IT companies have short-term goals," said Mr Wåhlberg. "They want to earn money, say, for the next three years, so they really don't care about long-term preservation. They want to give you some type of quick-fix and say 'ok, this is a digital archiving solution'. But we are dealing with data that goes back 100 years."
eArchiving and its interoperability
All government agencies need to update their digital records at some point. Data stored over time either needs to be disposed of or preserved according to laws, regulations and the agency's own internal needs. If not done properly, this process can be both cumbersome and complex. In the worst case scenario, digital records can be disseminated in an uncontrolled manner, hard to find, or even lost. Those can be the undesired consequences, if there isn't a clear process in place for digital archiving.
Preserving digital records at government level involves a number of databases and registries. Using RODA, one of the common-specifications-based end-to-end systems from the eArchiving Sample Software Portfolio ensures that by default, all the archives and records are interoperable with each other.
The EU being home to some of the strictest data protection laws in the world also made a difference when it came to Swedish Customs opting for eArchiving. "One of our main concerns was over the legal aspect," said Mr Wåhlberg. "We need to preserve a certain type of information, and we need to destroy another types of information according to [GDPR] rules and regulations."
Bringing data from the past into to future with eArchiving
CEF's eArchiving Building Block was crucial in creating a secure digital archiving platform, tailored to the project's needs. This particular Building Block has enabled Swedish Customs to preserve its digital records in a secure manner, while making the interoperability between different IT systems and digital archives a reality. The Swedish Customs’ electronic archive is now able to look after the digital records from all the departments within the agency. In the future, more and more digital records will be stored and managed in the Swedish Customs electronic archiving system. This digital transformation is expected to take years, mostly because of the large number of out-of-date IT systems still in operation. But with the use of the eArchiving Building Block, the Swedish Customs can rest assured that the integrity of its old digital data will remain intact.
How can CEF help you?
At the Connecting Europe Facility, we give you access to free tools, support and funding to help you build your digital services. Here are some of the other Building Blocks you might be interested in.
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