Transforming citizen experiences and access to documentation

Citizen documents, such as birth certificates, passports, immigration certificates, and visas, are among the most critical forms of documentation. Proving identity, they are necessary for key life events like employment, education, driving, international travel, and government benefits. Consequently, the accuracy, timeliness, and accessibility of citizen documents are vital.

A European government agency recently partnered with Iron Mountain to enhance the on-demand delivery of citizen document copies and create a seamless, positive, and timely citizen experience. This collaboration aimed to establish the following foundational capabilities and outcomes:

• Capture and digitise information from physical citizen documents
• Achieve 99.5% data extraction accuracy through intelligent document processing (IDP) with human-in-the-loop validation
• Improve and automate access and searchability for relevant citizen documents
• Bolster internal efficiencies, optimising the deployment of government resources
• Enable quick and accurate delivery of document copies to citizens

Moving away from manual processes to more accurate, timely, and efficient methods has allowed the government agency to improve both employee productivity and citizen experiences.

Digitising government records

The agency faced a complex undertaking in digitising its extensive collection of current and historical records, which were inconsistently maintained across various districts and comprised both structured and unstructured data. Adding to the challenge, over 50% of these records were handwritten, some in traditional cursive, making them difficult to read even for humans.

To address this, the agency is leveraging the principles behind Iron Mountain InSight® Intelligent Document Processing (IDP), a component of the Iron Mountain InSight® Digital Experience Platform (DXP). Built to rapidly transform documents into usable and accessible information, IDP empowers data-driven decisions and enhances customer experiences. The agency is applying these principles to reengineer its citizen documentation processes.

The Iron Mountain team began by identifying physical government birth records in storage for digitisation and metadata extraction. These were then imaged using optical character recognition (OCR), and key identifiable information, or metadata, was subsequently extracted using InSight IDP.

As part of the ongoing digitisation, Iron Mountain’s human-in-the-loop (HITL) services play a crucial role in data accuracy. These services match scanned images of citizen documents with data in the agency’s database, allowing for review and quality assurance before the files and extracted metadata are transferred to the government agency.

Previously, the agency’s substantial physical archive hindered accessibility and limited its full potential. Digitisation resolved this by enabling the extraction of richer metadata from citizen records, simplifying searches, and expediting responses to documentation requests.

Over two years, Iron Mountain processed more than five million documents, extracted key metadata, and migrated it to the government agency’s AWS cloud storage.

Boosting the accuracy of citizen documents

Now within the government agency’s systems, these digital files enhance citizen services through improved accuracy, faster responsiveness, and reduced manual effort. Consequently, agency resources previously dedicated to manually retrieving records and creating copies can be redirected to other critical organisational priorities.

By combining digitisation with IDP and HITL validation, the agency achieved an impressive 99.5% data extraction accuracy rate. This improvement significantly enhances the processing of ongoing citizen documentation requests and opens opportunities for greater automation moving forward. The organisation also realised over 50% savings in labor costs with automated image extraction and more than doubled its processing speed.

Streamlining citizen experiences

The government agency envisions a comprehensive digital transformation, with the creation of a digital library that encompasses birth records, death certificates, and marriage documentation as its central goal. The extracted metadata, representing key information from birth records, forms a foundational element of this future digital repository.

This digital library, once established, will empower citizens to access information directly, reducing their reliance on government agency resources. These fully automated capabilities will also accelerate other government- supported citizen services, such as driver’s license applications.

Consequently, the agency is realising internal efficiencies and laying the groundwork to streamline and elevate citizen experiences across all document support services.

A key objective was to achieve greater efficiency, a goal the agency successfully met through its collaboration with Iron Mountain. This increased efficiency has translated into significantly enhanced citizen experiences, resulting in a mutually beneficial outcome.

Learn more about Iron Mountain InSight® Intelligent Document Processing (IDP), part of Iron Mountain InSight® Digital Experience Platform (DXP).

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