Success story

Government of Ireland automates compliance and security

Overview

The Government of Ireland’s Department of Agriculture, Food, and the Marine (DAFM) processes grant applications submitted by farmers and their agents. However, applicants’ incorrect document submissions led to data breaches. DAFM worked with Red Hat and Version 1 to create SmartText, a machine learning (ML) text analysis platform that can correctly categorize documents while protecting back-end systems and delivering new features faster.

 

Icon-Red_Hat-Media_and_documents-Quotemark_Open-B-Red-RGB Our research showed that we needed an enterprise Kubernetes platform to create our machine learning text analysis solution. Red Hat OpenShift was the clear leader in that market. Red Hat also provides the security and control we need as a government organization.

Gareth Sheerin

Enterprise Architect, Government of Ireland Department of Agriculture, Food, and the Marine

Challenge

Mitigate risk of data breaches

The Government of Ireland’s Department of Agriculture, Food, and the Marine (DAFM) handles applications and payments for farming funding grants. DAFM receives 30,000-40,000 grant application documents annually, which often include sensitive information. Farmers often failed to classify these documents as sensitive, and agents sometimes uploaded documents to the wrong application. As a result, sensitive personal data was exposed to BPS employees or even other farmers, creating compliance risks.

Solution

Innovate to automatically find sensitive information

To mitigate the risk of financial penalties and reputational damage, DAFM sought to replace its legacy data system and processes with a solution that could automatically identify sensitive personal information. DAFM worked with Version 1 and Red Hat to develop DAFM’s SmartText solution, hosted on Red Hat OpenShift, which uses real-time artificial intelligence (AI) and ML capabilities to extract metadata and other contextual information from unstructured grant application documents.

Business outcome

Achieve compliance and development goals

When DAFM’s SmartText solution identifies a potential data privacy breach, the document is isolated and only authorized individuals can view the contents and redirect the document. As a result, DAFM can drastically reduce the number of breaches—and the associated reputational damage and financial penalties. Additionally, DAFM reduced development time from weeks to days with automation, APIs, and DevOps and improved security and stability with enterprise technology and support.

 


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