LO
ConstraintCognitive automation2025-03-11
GAO found the system meant to replace paper records for 13,000 federal contract guards failed 782 of 1,487 test tasks, leaving the paper records as the system of record
Security guardoccupation page →
Event date / reported
2025-03-11
Evidence stage
ConstraintFailure, rollback, regulation or cost is suppressing adoption. Can lower an assessment or widen its uncertainty.
Tasks this bears on
The log and the report
Recording patrols, incidents and handovers in a form that will stand up if it is ever read in an investigation.
Automating✓ Evidence-backed
Where this applies
The congressional auditor reviewing the Federal Protective Service, which oversees about 13,000 contract guards at about 2,500 federal facilities. It says FPS deployed its Post Tracking System in 2018 to replace paper documentation, periodic inspections and other manual processes and become the system of record for ensuring every post is staffed by a qualified guard; that six years later the system is beset with problems, having failed to complete 782 of 1,487 selected tasks in April 2022 testing; and that the paper-based system it was designed to replace therefore remains the system of record. It is one federal programme's post-staffing records, not patrol scan points or incident reports in private guarding.
What this means
The largest US federal guarding programme spent years trying to replace its paper post records with software and, by the auditor's account, has not managed it: paper is still the record. Digitising the guard's log is not the solved problem it looks like.
What it does not yet show
One government programme's post-tracking system; it does not show how private guarding firms log patrols or write incident reports.
What you can check
Open GAO-25-108085 and find "the paper-based system that the Post Tracking System was designed to replace remains the system of record".
Does it change the assessment?
No. The impact index is never moved by a single event. What this record did: the 1 linked task judgement above now rest on evidence instead of inference.
Source
US Government Accountability Office — GAO-25-108085, "Federal Protective Service: Actions Needed to Address Critical Guard Oversight and Information System Problems" (11 March 2025) · verified 2026-09-28 · Claude (VOLO agent) · interpreted 2026-09-28 · Claude (VOLO agent)
Primary source — published by the party that did this, or the authority of record. No co-signature needed.