What Immigration did with just $1m and open source software

The Department of Immigration has showed what a cash-strapped government agency can do with just $1 million, some open source software, and a bit of free thinking.

Speaking at the Technology in Government forum in Canberra yesterday, the Department's chief risk officer Gavin McCairns explained how his team rolled an application based on the 'R' language into productionto filter through millions of incoming visitors to Australia every year.

Despiteworking forone of the largest bodies in Canberra - and one of the most security conscious - McCairns put his endorsement firmlybehind the use of open source.

'R'is a software languagedesigned for for statistical computing and graphicsthat runs on a wide variety of UNIX platforms, Windows and MacOS.

The systematic risk alert system that McCairns oversaw is nowin full production in every airport in Australia. The whole project took just $1 million and12 months.

"We developed an approach based on phases of prototype, pilot and production. It was based on the idea of trying stuff for nothing or very cheap, McCairns said

Our first pilot cost just $50,000. That was to get a consultant to teach us how to drive the open source software."

The application works towards the department's ultimate goal of having less passengersqueueing for an immigration official in an airport and more being processed to come into Australia quickly and easily, by trawling through thousands of visa applications for suspect anomalies.

Australia's working holiday visa scheme receives some 290,000 applications each year.In 12 monthsthe R-developed system threw uproughly 1000 anomalous applications, McCairns said, leadingeventually to 69 visas being declined or cancelled on further investigation.

The system also helps withthe identification of drug mules and their contacts using email IP addresses and data matching.

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What Immigration did with just $1m and open source software