Government adopts electronic initiatives for more secure document management

Federal initiatives to go paperless are aiming to minimize negative impact on an agency’s operations due to document loss.

According to MarketWatch, Hurricane Sandy impeded the delivery of approximately 350,000 Social Security checks to Northeastern U.S. citizens. In an effort to prevent environmental factors from affecting payment processes, the federal government is enforcing a March 1 deadline for the electronic availability of Social Security and Supplemental Security Income checks. Already, 93 percent of SS and SSI checks are in compliance with this effort to go digital. As a result of the paperless payment strategy, there will be an estimated $1 billion in government savings over the next 10 years.

In addition to reduced printing expenditures, this initiative will provide enhanced security for payment information and eliminate instances of lost or stolen checks. According to Mass Live, 440,000 Social Security checks were compromised in the mail, and an additional $70 million in paper checks were endorsed fraudulently. While participating in a survey at the Park Hills Senior Center, Ed Guddenburg told the Daily Journal that he is optimistic about the electronic transition considering possibilities for theft or loss in paper mail transit.

Stolen checks are not the only reason federal agencies are concentrating on electronic conversion. Greenville Online reported that William Blume, the interim director for the state Department of Revenue, recently told a panel of senators that he will be demanding changes over document management after a breach last year exposed information for almost 700,000 businesses. Blume was adamant that digitization is essential to efficiency, stating that electronic filing not only saves taxpayers money but it also greatly reduces room for error from illegibility.

As the government seeks a more secure solution to storing citizen information as well as providing a safe method for submitting documents, more agencies will adopt a digital approach to file maintenance.

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