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Actian > Case Studies > Keeping European Football Safe is the “Goal” for Actian Ingres Database

Keeping European Football Safe is the “Goal” for Actian Ingres Database

Technology Category

Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Data Exchange & Integration
Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Database Management & Storage

Applicable Industries

Security & Public Safety

Applicable Functions

Business Operation

Use Cases

Intrusion Detection Systems
Public Warning & Emergency Response
Regulatory Compliance Monitoring

Services

Data Science Services
System Integration

The Challenge

The CIV, a subsidiary of the Dutch Police and a center of excellence for football hooligan management, was created in 1986 after particular heavy riots and violence related to football. The CIV needed to find a way to track previous football related violence, maintain a record of trends among offenders, and keep a database of all known football hooligans. As a result, it created the Hooligan Tracking System (VVS in Dutch) to gather information regarding incidents of violence, hooligans’ backgrounds, effects of actions, previous convictions, and trends in behavior. Cost management is key to any IT project in the public sector. The ability to integrate and allow access to the system was central to its success as a national and pan-European knowledgebase. As Hooligans travel through Europe for games, the VVS also understood the important of supporting multiple European languages, using Dutch and English as the default languages.

About The Customer

CIV is a subsidiary of the Dutch Police and a center of excellence for football hooligan management. It was created in 1986 after particular heavy riots and violence related to football. The organization recognized the need for a single record of football-related violence to monitor the activities of a relatively small group of violent offenders, widely known as “football hooligans.” As records of previous violence and its perpetrators are disparate and reside within various organizations across the Netherlands and the world, a single database with the ability to provide secure access for law enforcement agencies, governments, border control etc., was a key weapon in preventing football violence. The database has become a mission-critical tool for not only the Dutch authorities, but also the wider European community to fight hooliganism and make football safe for all those that wish to attend games.

The Solution

CIV worked with Ingres partner, Elegant ICT, to create a reliable database to support the work of law enforcement agencies in Europe by providing a platform for the exchange of information concerning international football matches. The Hooligan Tracking System was first released in 1997. To be able to meet all the functional, technical and financial criteria, Elegant ICT developed the Ingres modeling tool Elegance, written in Ingres OpenROAD, which automates the data modeling and application generation process based upon user specifications. The migration project to Ingres Database and Ingres OpenROAD was successfully implemented in April 2009. European regulations require all local IFIP’s (International Football Information Points) take measures to deal with football related hooliganism. One of the tools at hand is a website that reveals the relevant information to its (limited by-authorization) users across Europe. VVS is one of the trustworthy sources that is used by this website.

Operational Impact

The VVS database holds information related to all football matches in the Netherlands such as dates, schedules, locations, crowd numbers, as well as data on persons linked to football related violence.
VVS is now recognized by European courts as a trustworthy source to cite in conclusions and rulings.
It is considered to be the most advanced and one-of-a kind solution that supports the process of arrest-hold-prosecute-convict hooligans to all the involved chain partners.

Quantitative Benefit

Over the past decade the VVS has seen impressive results in terms of Cost of Ownership.
The reduction in maintenance costs due to its stability has ensured that VVS is considered a best practice example of how government agencies can reduce costs without stifling innovation but continue to protect its citizens.