“an essential part of everyday life’ www.p
06/02 '02 17:41 FAX
COMMERCIAL TEAM oz
Colin Lenton-Smith
Finance and Commercial Director
ICL Pathway
Forest Road
Feltham
TW13 7EJ
06.02.02
Dear Colin
Re: LOST DATA & AUDIT REQUESTS
I wrote to you on 29 August 2001 regarding lost data and you
responded to that letter on 19 September. I have learnt from
colleagues in Business Service Management that the latest update of
the entry in the ICL Pathway CS Problem Management Database
(dated 7 January 2002) states that “Whilst the action outlined above
mitigates a recurrence, ICL Pathway has advised the Head of Horizon
Commercial .... that measures to remove altogether the risk of future tape
corruption can be achieved only by a complete re-design of the current
solution”. In fact, I have received no such advice and am therefore
writing to ask for an update on the incident.
There are significant concerns arising from this issue, which I have set
out below. My understanding of the events based on information Post
Office Ltd has received from ICL Pathway is as follows.
Following your attempt to action our Request for Information (RF1)
Number 8, Charles Leighton, Post Office Ltd Security Manager, was
told that ICL Pathway were unable to provide the information requested
because the Audit Trail was incomplete for a period between 8 August
2000 and 14 August 2000.
This was confirmed in a letter dated 23 May 2001 from Jan Holmes of
ICL Pathway to Susan Kinghorn of Consignia Internal Audit. Additional
details provided in the letter showed a remarkable series of events,
which appear to have been caused by poor implementation of the audit
Page 1 of 3 Post Office Ltd
Registered in England Number: 2154540
Registered Office: Gavrelle House, 2-14 Bunhill Row
London ECIY 8HQ
‘The Post Office and the Post Office symbol are
Fegistered trade marks of Post Office Ltd in the
UK and other countries
FUJ00176295
FUJ00176295
FUJ00176295
FUJ00176295
COMMERCIAL TEAM Bo3
06/02 '02 17:41 FAX?
Page 2o0f3
trail (which appears not to comply with the contracted solution), and by
ICL Pathway’s failure to exercise appropriate management control in
carrying out the procedures for servicing audit trail requests.
We understand that both data centre tapes for the same period ®
became corrupt. We have not seen any evidence to indicate that
Pathway understands the root cause of these failures, and therefore
must conclude that either data corruption is a common occurrence or
that there is some common cause that makes the holding of duplicate
or multiple copies ineffective as a resilience measure.
This incident has been further compounded by the fact that the courier
you used to transport the tape from your Wigan computer centre lost
the tape in transit.
The lack of a satisfactory explanation for the series of events means
that we have no confidence that similar incidents will not occur in
future.
I am also not convinced that the introduction of “read after write”
activity to the digital linear tapes (DLTs) will alleviate this problem. The
ICL Pathway problem log states that “The data is appended to DLTs
over a period of weeks thus the tape is subject to repeated read/write
activity”. It is also not clear whether the tape corruption had occurred
on writing to the tapes, in storage, or on reading them to process the
audit trail query.
! also note from your problem log that the “read after write” facility
impacts on an already tight schedule for the Legato drives. it appears
to me that this will have had an adverse impact on the cost of the audit
trail requests to be provided for the Network Banking service. Can you
please provide proof that this is not the case.
This incident and the issues arising from lost data represent significant
risks to Post Office Limited's business. It compromises our ability to
asssure end to end financial integrity of our business, our ability to
comply with accounting and data protection regulations, and puts at
risk our service commitments to our existing clients. This failure also
calls into question the credibility of the existing service infrastructure as
a platform that is fit to deliver financial services and that will satisfy our
future clients specifications for these services.
06/02 '02 17:41 FAX! COMMERCIAL TEAM Bos
Page 3o0f3
As you will be no doubt aware, you are in default of various obligations
in the Codified Agreement as a result of this incident, which give rise to
the right to terminate, and there is a risk of future similar defaults
because the root causes have not been identified and corrected. ®
These obligations include, without limitation, clauses 702.1 and 702.2,
schedule A02 paragraph 4.1.6 Schedules A15 and A16, Requirements
and Solutions 699, 828 and 829. I note also that the solution described
in S699, namely the use of optical storage media, does not appear to
have been implemented.
I look forward to a full and detailed report in response to this letter with
ICL Pathway’s detailed plan for rectification of this issue or proposed
enhancement that will without doubt remove this event happening
again. Because of the implications of this issue for the banking
solution, I require a response within the next week.
I would also like confirmation of whether or not the original loss of data
is capable of rectification, and if so when you expect to recover the
data, this is also required within the next week.
Post Office Limited reserves all rights in relation to this incident
including those set out in clause 902.2 of the Codified Agreement.
Yours sincerely,
Keith Baines
Post Office Ltd
IS Service Manager
Calthorpe House
15-20 Phoenix Place
LONDON WC1X ODG
FUJ00176295
FUJ00176295