The Automatic Licence Verification System was unavailable from 7.46am on 11 May until 8.50pm on 14 May after a power outage at a privately owned data centre used by Defra. Several Defra digital services were affected over the weekend. Business continuity plans were activated and contingency arrangements were used for clearance of affected vehicles and consignments at the border.
Lessons learned
Maintain tested backup power arrangements and failover paths for critical data centre services.
Ensure cross-agency data sharing platforms have documented contingency procedures that can be activated immediately.
Verify that border clearance processes can continue without digital system support for several days.
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