Thousands of customs officers were able to view the secret procurement data

The internal IT System of companies and administrations is often a strange place – a mix of useful work device and the digital dump. Since the lists, the menu plan of the canteen and the news from the Executive documents of the dismissed or deceased employees. find, in addition to contracts, phone Or the Remnants of long-buried projects.

And sometimes there are also information for all the visible that are, in fact, a secret. As recently in the case of the Swiss Federal customs administration (FCA).

The over 4000 customs employees had months of access to classified procurement documents, which had charged an employee in a free-to-view folder. A Memo of the customs internal audit, in the this newspaper took using the public law insight. "The evaluation team has lost control of the confidential documents", it says in the Memo of July 2018. Information on the award of public contracts are highly sensitive. Anyone who participates in a tender, must make in his Dossier detailed information on its range, for example, as the price of the offer is concluded. This business secrets must be in any case larger circles or even the competition.

fierce battle

The auditors are to become aware of the Problem because currently a fierce battle for a contract of duty, raging. The companies Swisscom and Axpo had applied both to the invitation to tender, to renew a part of the Swiss police radio network Polycom. The customs-supervised country-wide, approximately 250 masts of this billion dollar network, about the thousands of police officers, firefighters and paramedics every day to communicate.

The FCA to be notified the order in April 2018, the Swisscom. In order for the thing was not running. Axpo felt cheated, because Swisscom had subsequently reduced the price of their offer. Was that only because a Swisscom-man in March 2018 at an IT Congress had blabbed. Axpo submitted a complaint, since the order is blocked at the Federal administrative court, which jeopardises the complete operation of the Polycom network.

And now, because, of all these millions of months were offers for the entire FCA staff to see.

It may be that there is a very innocent explanation for the retroactive price discount to Swisscom. Because the data were stored FCA-in public, damaged the credibility of the award. How do you exclude the possibility that one of the over 4000 employees of customs a Swisscom representative whispered to a few Numbers?

Immediately

delete The auditors of the duty have recognized this as a credibility problem. You can write, the files are at least at three Points including externally in a non-descript cantonal police authority, which has helped us in the evaluation of the offers. In addition, private consultants working on the project, they did not have access to price-relevant information, even though you needed to have this.

The internal controllers and the buyer instructed to delete the sensitive Polycom files immediately and to consider, whether in the public folders, any sensitive data from other projects flitted around. External consultants should have in the future, no access to information about offered prices.

A spokesman for the FCA is writing to request that you have initiated, according to the Memo measures immediately. And further: "The FCA and trains your employees' awareness regarding conflict of interest."

Axpo and Swisscom do not want to comment on the dispute, because he is still in court pending.

(editing Tamedia)

Created: 30.04.2019, 20:38 PM