 My apologies for keeping you waiting, just been one of those days and I've gone from meetings to meetings to meetings. I'm running a little bit behind schedule. We thought we'd be here on time but it wasn't possible so thank you for that. Can I introduce to you Assistant Commissioner Paul Stewart. Paul has in charge of our Information Communications Technology Division here in the Queensland Police Service based here of course at Police Headquarters. There are at least two things we wanted to talk about today. The first was an error in our computer system, a human error in terms of some data that was put in wrongly and had a certain result and we'll go through that with you and I see you've been given the media release and I just like to go through that with you and add a little bit more information to what is in the media release. And the second was a request for your support and assistance with the road toll which I'm really worried about but whilst August is not yet finished until midnight tonight it's the worst month this year and the number of young people who have been killed this month is terrible as well and I wanted to seek your assistance in promoting the seriousness of that situation and just how terrible it would be if it continues. What we thought we'd do though is this is deal with the IT issue first I'll say a few words about that. Paul will then we'll take questions and then if you're able to stay I'd like to comment on the road toll and then after we've done that if there was any other issue at all that you'd like to raise and that we can respond to more than prepared to. Well as you can see in the media release we've identified that there was an error in our computer system. There was a human error that was caused by a contractor who we've employed for six years who's done a fine job for us in that six years up until now entering some data incorrectly in terms of a program that was part of an ongoing program in terms of standardisation of our systems. We if I by way of background I could indicate to you that there are five entities that we provide information to in terms of the checking of their people and those five entities are the Commissioned for Children and Young Persons in respect of blue cards. The other four areas are the Department of Communities and these are called yellow cards and these are for people who work with people who have disabilities so similar to a blue card you have to have an authority to work with people with disabilities and that's called the yellow card. The other areas are the Education Department in terms of the employment of teachers Queensland Transport in terms of the employment of public passenger drivers people such as taxi drivers and bus drivers and the fifth and final area is the Office of Fair Trading who license security officers people who work in the security industry. Now in respect of all of those areas if you want to get a blue card or a yellow card or be a taxi or bus driver obviously you have to apply for that qualification and my understanding is that with all of those you there is a criminal history check a national criminal history check that's conducted up front as well with blue card holders and yellow card holders and teachers they are required by law to self report if they are prosecuted with a criminal offence. There's a legal obligation and requirement on them to self report. Another safeguard is that quite often the local police quite properly will notify if a blue card holder has been charged with an offence so the local system works in that regard as well. We have an additional overlay and that is this that every 24 hours we run a computer check on all of those people who are licensed in those five categories that I just described to you and as you'll see in the media release that's almost 700,000 people. Now what happened was that back in late May this glitch as a result of this unfortunate incorrect entry occurred and is indicated in the media release and Paul can explain this in more detail if you wish. We lost 10 hours each day of data capture. That initially it came to light that we probably had a problem with this. It's taken us a little while to determine the extent of it. It's only been as late as yesterday evening that we got the final numbers and that we were comfortable with and sure of so that we could notify the five agencies and we've done that today. We've also fixed the problem in the computer system and we're continuing to monitor that. What's really important is that there were no child related sexual offences involved at all. In other words no children for victims of sexual offences. The most serious matter which involved a blue card holder involved a matter where an offence occurred. It was reported and the offender who obviously is the alleged offender was arrested within a couple of days of the offence being recorded and that person has been in custody since and remains in custody. So even that even though that person was a blue card holder that person has not been out in the public space since being arrested for the alleged offence. As is indicated in the media release there are a total of 76 people here involved all told and if I could give you the breakdown of that for the respective five agencies involved. Blue card holders are the greatest number. There's 57 persons who are blue card holders. Two teachers. Two yellow card holders for people who work in disability services. Nine people from the security industry. Excuse me. And six from the public transport industry. Now the information regarding those 76 people has been provided today to those five agencies and they have been asked to expedite the assessment of what they will do because it's their responsibility to determine what happens to these people and to do at the very least an initial assessment of that within the next 24 hours. But the determination of what happens. So for example with the blue card holders if the Commission for Children and Young People decide to rescind that blue card that's their decision. It's not the police department's decision. We only provide them with the information that's come to hand. And they have procedures and processes in place to do that which they will of course undertake. But the request has been made of all five agencies and I believe they've agreed to expedite the initial assessment of that within the next 24 hours. I don't think there's probably much more I can add at this time but we'll take questions and Paul is there anything else you'd like to add to what I've said. Just to add to the Commissioner. The developer left out a small piece of code in relation to the development of the system. So that's what occurred. It's later being picked up. What happened was it was missed during our testing processes. And I just want to highlight that the small piece of code that there's a lot of code that's developed by these people in relation to these complex systems and interfaces. It was in the process of updating and enhancing 63 interfaces that we have and this is only one interface in which this trouble occurred. The issue is related really to the time frames and as the Commissioner has said the Greenwich Mean Time issue in which it picked up as Australian Eastern Standard Time rather than Greenwich Mean Time and so there was a 10 hour lag in relation to information going through that 24 hour basis. So 14 hours worth of records or notifications were still being made. There was a 10 hour gap in the data that was transferring across through that interface and that was why it was difficult to pick up through any testing process and indeed there were notifications that were still happening to the agencies. As soon as we became aware of that the system was immediately reviewed and the fix was put into place. It was corrected immediately through that process. Just in relation to our future testing processes as rigorous as our testing and change processes are we'll obviously review those and ensure that we look at the user acceptance in relation to any further enhancements that we make. We've looked at all our interfaces. We've examined them carefully because of the nature of the time frame and the 24 hour search. This was different to any other interface that we had so it was really a standalone issue in relation to QPS systems. The only thing I could probably add is it's possible but we don't know that the Commission for Children and Young People and even the other agencies may all already be aware of some of these 76 people because of what I mentioned earlier that reporting requirement on individuals to report that legislative requirement that in any event they're aware of the material now and they've undertaken to, as I said, provide an initial assessment of it in the next 24 hours. Okay, can we take questions on this issue now then? Yeah, look I suspect that nearly all of them would have already had, can we just talk about the blue card holders for a moment, that they would have already had blue cards. However, it can also include applicants. Okay, because once you apply and make the formal application, you go on to our system. So they might not have even got the blue card. They might have simply been an applicant. But that's a degree of detail that we just don't have at the moment. But we've just felt that the priorities were to fix the system and the mistake that had been made in number two to identify how many people we hadn't captured until the agencies. So we'll know that in the future, whether they were blue card holders or applicants for a blue card, I suspect that most of them are blue card holders, but I just don't have that now. Technically and theoretically, that's that's possible. So there's every chance that some of the 76 might not have been working with children over that period because the individual agencies might have identified them with the self reporting. Yeah, as I mentioned, there are a range of safe cards here. The first for blue card holders and yellow card holders and teachers is the legislative requirement to report if they are charged with an offense. So that is a legal requirement on them. If they don't report, they commit an offense by not reporting. The second is often, locally, the police will know the person's a blue card holder and report up through the system. And then the third one. And can I say that my understanding is that not every jurisdiction in Australia has this final and third overlay that we have, which is this 24 hour checking where we're not everyone does that. But we see it as a useful, you know, addition. So as I said, nearly every 24 hours, nearly every one of these almost 700,000 people are checked to see if they've been arrested in the previous 24 hours. Of the 76, none of them are child sex offenders in their record. But were any of them violent offenders or violent offenses? Some of the charges do relate to what we call offenses against the person, which could include assault charges and could include offenses such as or alleged offenses, because in many cases these matters won't have been finalized in the courts, such as breaches of domestic violence. There will be a range of issues here, ranging from a driving offense to drug offenses to some assault matters. And each agency, and again, this is a matter for the agency, has their own particular set of criteria. So obviously for the children, so the Commission for Children and Young People, their criteria may well be different to the criteria for the security industry or the transport industry. The process for accounting for all these discrepancies now, is that for the individual agencies or is that your area? The responsibility for determining whether any of these 76 people lose the blue card, yellow card or licence they have is the responsibility of the individual agency and they have their own set of criteria that determines whether the situation is serious enough to warrant the rescinding or withdrawal of the authority. The misnotifications have all now gone out for those agencies, have they? Yes, yes. Can I say before that the most serious incident was the blue card holder when it was now in custody, what was it again? Yes, that was an indecent assault. The alleged offender is an adult, the victim is an adult and that was the most serious matter. I think we've actually referred to it in the media release that we've given to you. It's the fifth last paragraph and it's the words, the words are a QPS analysis has identified that one indecent assault of an adult relating to a blue card applicant. This person apparently is applied for a blue card, we're unreported during this period and within days of that offence being reported the alleged offender was arrested and has been in custody ever since, okay? I'm sorry, the occupation? No, but I can take that question I notice and if we're able to give you that information I'm prepared to provide that in the future. There's a range of things here today that you'll possibly obviously ask us that we simply aren't able to answer today but if we can give you that information in the future we'll undertake to do so. Okay, welcome to say whether or not the offence was in any way connected to the reason it was a blue card? No, well he was a blue card applicant and my understanding is clearly that it was and it was an offence that happened in a public place and was an opportunistic type of offence that's the advice that I'm given and as I said within days of the offence being reported the alleged offender because he's not convicted yet has been charged and has remained in custody ever since. Can I just get you to explain in Lane's terms the 10 hour window? Yeah, can I ask Paul to do that? He has a better knowledge of that than I do. The files are searched between 2am and 2am on a 24 hour period and what happens is there's a code in a system that checks the records against the 700,000 people so it goes in and checks what should have happened if the code was there it would have checked against the Greenwich Mean Time which is the all the records are actually recorded against Greenwich Mean Time so what happened was that because the code wasn't there the system automatically defaulted to what it was working in which is the Scram system which is Australian standard Eastern Time and so therefore the 10 hour difference between the two of those would have been picked up now what happened was that because of that 10 hour period between 2am and midday it would look at that and those records would actually appear in the day before so because it only searches against that 24 hour period that 10 hour period would have been missed because it would have appeared as if it was in the previous 24 hours. So this system is not only checking new applicants but it's also checking which people should be stripped of their car is that right or committed offences over that period? It's checking everyone who has a blue card yellow card or license to be a security person or a public transport driver and it's also checking new applicants the vast number though that almost 700,000 people are people who already have blue cards yellow cards or those authorities to you know drive public transport vehicles or are school teachers only a relatively small proportion would be new applicants but it does capture that from the moment people apply they go on to this checking system but if their application is unsuccessful it's an important point I guess to add or they no longer engage in the employment that they're in they come off the system because there's a privacy issue there about us checking people you know. So what does 76 people haven't self reported as they were supposed to be? They may have. They may have. There's a degree of urgency about this for us the urgency was firstly to fix the system which we've done the second thing was to find out how many people we hadn't notified the five agencies about five agencies about which is 76 which we've now done there's more information we would like to find out ourself of course and that is does for example you know the Commission for Children and Young People already know about some of the 57 people that we're telling them about today they may but I don't have that information now. The other urgency was to tell you tell the media and tell the public what had happened we've given a commitment that if we if we get something wrong we'll tell you and we wanted to do that as soon as possible we weren't able to do it until we knew the extent of it ourselves and we didn't know that till last night and as I mentioned I think as Paul mentioned regrettably and there's a touch of irony about it this mistake was occurred because of endeavors of our people to standardise systems and as a result the contractor entered in the wrong information and that was the mistake that was made so the irony is that by trying to actually standardise and improve the system we made the mistake. There was an inkling that something was wrong back in August and it took a little while to find out what was actually wrong so the priority then was to fix the system which we did but the next priority was to accurately find out how many people we hadn't reported to the five agencies and as I said it wasn't until last evening yesterday evening that we had that number and we passed that on from information on them this morning that's why we've gone public now. No no the inkling came about through a police officer who was aware of someone and saw one of the lists going into one of the agencies and and didn't see that person's name on the list and said look there could be a problem here and fortunately it was picked up but what I think is a relatively early stage I mean you know it's unfortunate regrettable but it actually could have been worse. When people apply for a blue card there is a national criminal history check okay that's done for everyone who applies and after that for all of those people who've got those blue cards and for everyone who applies as well we run this check every 24 hours and the concept of this checking the idea is is to catch and capture people who get arrested for something after they've got the blue card. Yeah I'm sorry could you just I just missed the photographer just clicking away beside you and I couldn't know I just couldn't quite hear your question. Yeah well we don't know of anyone we don't know and we know that there are no child sexual offences involved in this at all which is probably the number one concern I think the number one concern people would have but the detail of that we won't know until we have further dialogue with the agencies involved but we are not aware of any such occurrence and we are certainly hopeful that there hasn't been. We know who the six people are and we've notified the transport department of that and it'll now be up to them to determine whether the matters alleged against these people in terms of the charges that have been preferred under their criteria are sufficient to withdraw their public transport licenses and there's no guarantee that that will happen you know sorry. I think there's only one that's actually a driving offence I think the other matters either relate to assaults or offences of dishonesty of some degree but can I say that again that doesn't automatically follow that if you're a taxi driver and you've been convicted of shop lifting that you would lose your taxi driver's license it may not happen you know. Yes between the check is done on a 24-hour basis between 2am and 2am so at 2am this morning compared back to 2am what was happening was if it went back to 2am it would default to Greenwich Mean Time so that would actually appear like 4pm the day before so there's a 10 hour callback. No not in the system not in. You explain that. Sorry? How did you explain that? Yeah if sorry I'm just trying if so between that 24-hour window that we check against these in relation to it there was a 10-hour period where those records were not transferred across so it became a window that it was a window of invisibility that we couldn't see anything there it appeared as if it was the day before. That doesn't mean can I just sorry can we just continue with that before we take that question that doesn't mean that in any sense this is only the notification of the 5-8 and there's no suggestion whatsoever that our basic criminal history record section was in any way affected by this all of these 76 people are charged before the courts with these offences and there's been no glitch in that process. I'm sorry could I take your question here? My question is why wasn't it between midnight to 2am not getting picked up? 2am because it was 2am to 2am the 24-hour check was 2am to midday I guess. No he hasn't. He has worked for us on and off for six years. He's highly regarded. He's mortified by this mistake. He acknowledges that he made the mistake and our priority his circumstances and his employment with us are still under consideration but our priority was to fix the system and then find out the extent of the missed reporting and then to go public which we've done all those three things and we'll now turn our mind to our employment relationship with the contractor. Is that what's being assessed? Yes it does. What sort of reaction of the five agencies in terms of the task that is now before them in terms of catching up? Oh professionally understanding that mistakes can happen and that's what's happened in this case and might I say again at the risk of being repetitive that not everyone, not every jurisdiction in Australia has this additional overlay of 24 hour checking of nearly 700,000 people that we do. So you know they've been quite understanding at this point in time and as I indicated they've been good enough to give a commitment that within 24 hours they'll do at least an initial assessment of each of the people for their respective agencies. Can I ask a question? You always have a lot of faith in the blue card system. Is it disappointing for you or not at all? Oh and I think it's a wonderful system I really do here. Are you supported by the system? Oh of course we're always you know we've got 15,000 people, we make mistakes. What I've always said is if we make a mistake we'll tell you about it and we'll fix it and that's what's happened here. Anyone who wrote the public's faith? I certainly hope not. I certainly hope not. I mean what we're talking about here is 57 people and I can't give you the precise outcome of that again it's up to the agency to determine whether any of those 57 people without being presumptuous clearly the person who was the applicant who was charged with that serious matter I mean you would think there's no chance of that person you know getting or retaining a blue card but that's a decision not for me it's for the commission but we won't know for a little while yet as to whether any of those other the others of the 57 so in other words the 56 have their blue cards taken off them. It's not automatic and each agency has its own criteria. How many charges are there? There were 57 people some were charged with more than one offence and the total charges were 67 charges. I'm sorry in respect of the blue card holders my understanding is that there were 57 well sorry there were 57 of those by the blue card holders or applicants and the total charges for those 57 people were 67 charges and how that comes about of course is a person could be charged with two drug offences position of cannabis and position of a utensile use of smoke so one person can be charged with two offences. In respect of the others my understanding is that the number of people is the same as the number of charges so two teachers two charges two yellow card holders were working with people with a disability two charges nine security providers nine charges and six public passenger drivers and six charges that's my understanding if there's any correction to that at any time I'll come back to you on that. In all circumstances if there's so many six people could be freed up how would it be then would it be again up to the agencies to decide what is done with these people from there? Does that help me join what it says? Exactly yeah and as I said that's right and just because and I'm not down playing this in any sense but just because you maybe charged for conviction and offence doesn't mean depending on it depends on the nature of the offence and each agent has its own criteria so it doesn't mean that you should lose your right perhaps to be a taxi driver or for that matter necessarily to work with young people it would depend on the nature of what you've done and it may well be that you know the agency says well this is not worth taking this person's livelihood off them or it doesn't mean that they're not suitable to work with children but the criteria is and the responsibility quite rightly and properly is that of each agency. That's a question touched with the I'm told he was an applicant my understanding is he was an applicant. Part of the situation with the blue card is that my understanding of how it works is you should declare any serious criminal convictions that you have when you apply for the blue card so right at the front gate if you said look I've got convictions for indecent assault and rape you wouldn't go any further you know you would be automatically disqualified immediately. Next step is the national criminal history check okay after that and then the decision is made as to whether the person gets the blue card or not and then if they do it comes into play legislatively that if they're charged with an offence they're required legally to self report as I said there's an additional aspect where many of our people particularly outside of Brisbane would report up through the system if they charge someone who they know works with children as you know obviously you have to have a blue card to work with children and then the final measure is the one that we're talking about here today which is our 24 hour checking process of the nearly 700,000 people that are captured by these five areas. Look thank you I appreciate that there's some things we can't tell you today but certainly we'll undertake I guess together with the agencies involved to provide further information as that you know has established. Are we okay now if we talk about the road time?