2012 Olympics Lose 10,000 G4S Security Personnel, Computer Glitch Partly to Blame

Naturally, the London 2012 Olympic Games is going to have more security than a TSA Christmas party. Not only is it the biggest competitive sporting event in the world, but it is also a breeding ground for tension as countries that may not get along too well politically will be facing off in the spirit of competition.

But even though security will be tight, it won’t be as tight as it should have been. A recent discovery has uncovered that a computer glitch is partly responsible for a shortfall in security for this year’s Summer Olympics in London. Security giant G4S recently admitted that it would be unable to deliver nearly 10,000 security personnel that it contracted for the games, which also resulted in 3,500 military personnel being drafted to make up for the loss.

Chief Executive Officer of G4S Nick Buckles told the Home Affairs Select Committee on Tuesday that the shortfall is “partly due to the fact our scheduling system hasn’t effectively worked to roster the staff.” The software used manages the rostering pipeline for applicants to be G4S security staff at the Games and provides weekly reports on applicant processing.

In addition to that, it is the same system that the firm uses to handle the deployment of security staff at sporting events every single weekend. Buckles did state that he had been made aware of the shortfall and the problems with the scheduling system on July 3, though he initially thought that they could be resolved.

“We were still confident early on that we were going to produce the numbers. But the more and more we dug into the data, looked at the process and the scheduling day by day we started to realize that the pipeline and the people we thought we were going to be able to deliver, we couldn’t,” Buckle commented.

Buckle told the government officials that G4S would not be able to provide the necessary security staff for the games at an Olympic Security Board meeting on July 11. Buckles also told the committee that he was “very sorry” for everything that had happened.

Source: ZD Net – Computer glitch in the frame for Olympics G4S security fiasco

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