Those who went in to the Immigration Department today to apply for new or renewed passports were turned away. That's because of a countrywide system failure of the network database that the Immigration Department uses. Until it is repaired, no passports will be accepted or processed.
This computerized passport system is so integrated in the Immigration Department that even the Belizean Embassies and Diplomatic Missions around the world are all interconnected. Today, the Minister of Immigration told us that all those embassies will also be unable to process any passport until the system is repaired:
Hon. Godwin Hulse, Minister of Immigration
"I want to apologize to the good people of Belize for the inconvenience, but yesterday our system went down and we have a contract with 3M, its process through their network, it's a very secure system so far. We had to ask CITO to come in, which is our local office and bring in somebody from 3M who is here right now as we are speaking with our engineers trying to get the system back up. We really apologize for the inconvenience, but there is really nothing we can do. System has gone down countrywide and it has also gone down with all our missions across the world; Taiwan, United Kingdom, United States, everywhere. Hopefully we have it up this evening. If not the guys will work through the night to try to restore it. By tomorrow, we will let the public and so some unforeseen reasons it's not, I am sure by Monday we will have it up."
Daniel Ortiz
"Talk to us about how the system work?"
Hon. Godwin Hulse, Minister of Immigration
"Actually as you know the data capture is the most important thing. It is supposed to be a fairly secure system. The database that is collected from that records all you data once you get your passport. That goes into the system, so when you come back to renew, you don't have the hassles that people are now experiencing of trying to collect and put all the data in it. And it's a fairly secure system, as secure as systems go. So, when there is a malfunction, then everything shuts down across the network which is as I said with our embassies because it's all linked."
Daniel Ortiz
"How does that affect the embassies as well sir?"
Hon. Godwin Hulse, Minister of Immigration
"It doesn't in a sense. The embassy works continue, but just that people are trying to get passports through our embassies will have to wait."
Hulse told us that this system is used by the Immigration Department to streamline the data processing for passports, and to secure your sensitive information from external intrusion.
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