Leading the city’s 100% Digital Leeds initiative, Leeds Library Service wanted to increase digital inclusion by making tablets and training available to Leeds residents. IBM® MaaS360® with Watson™ Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) helps by protecting borrowers’ personal data while enabling fast, efficient turnaround of tablets for re-lending.
The tablet program faced a critical scalability issue. Without endpoint and mobile management tools, the staff had to completely rebuild each tablet following the factory reset to eliminate a borrower’s personal data.
Unified endpoint management, delivered by solutions provider O2 using MaaS360, combined with data usage controls from IBM Business Partner Asavie, enabled data privacy and fast turnaround.
A number of factors are behind the city of Leeds’ drive to improve digital accessibility for residents. One is its own ambitious “100% Digital Leeds” goal in support of a “digital by default” strategy to deliver services. Another is the rollout of Universal Credit, a digital-only program that consolidates claims services for a number of different national social benefits.
Moreover, in living up to its motto “A compassionate city with a strong economy,” the city council is committed to reaching people who are disadvantaged in some way and, as a result, digitally excluded. While there are a number of agencies addressing digital inclusion in various ways, the council decided to consolidate its efforts through the Leeds Library Service to in turn provide resources, direction and support to the organizations that deliver services to target populations.
“We want to address those drivers, but as well we want people simply to have better outcomes in their own lives,” says Jason Tutin, Digital and Learning Development Manager for Leeds Library Service. “That could be reducing social isolation by using Facebook to keep up with friends and family and feel more a part of the community. Or it could be enabling people to look for a job online. This will allow us to engage more effectively with people than by saying ‘You can do council things online’.”
The Library Service devised an innovative tablet lending scheme to reach digitally excluded populations by taking internet access out into the community. However, from an early pilot that lent tablets to members of the Library at Home program, the service learned it could not scale an effort based on using iPads out of the box, with no additional management.
“Every time a customer would give back a tablet, we would do a factory reset to erase any personal data. But that also erased anything useful that we had preloaded onto the iPad, such as the link to our online catalog to help the customers borrow books,” says Jason Tutin. That meant staff would have to manually reload content onto each tablet before it could go out again—a process that was barely manageable with 20 tablets.
With the goal of scaling up to 150 tablets in the program, the Library Service began conversations with suppliers about making the transition between users more efficient. Mobile communications provider O2 worked with the service to create a tailored, end-to-end solution for the tablet lending scheme.
MaaS360 provides the unified endpoint management (UEM) capabilities that are integral to the O2 solution, which includes iPad tablets, a monthly allowance of 5GB of mobile data per tablet, and a custom preload of apps, eBooks and a modified app store. The preload also includes links to council services such as housing and resources such as links, apps and digital content to help people manage their health.
UEM from MaaS360 gives the Library Service fine-tuned control and centralized management over the tablets it lends. Tablets can be tracked and controlled to maintain service and security. In the case of loss or theft, a tablet can be remotely locked and wiped.
“Now with MaaS360, when a tablet comes back, we can do a factory reset to wipe the borrower’s data without losing the preloaded image,” Jason Tutin says, noting that wiping the data is a critical capability for addressing data privacy requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Solution in hand, the Library Service worked with O2 to identify local charities and community support organizations serving people most at risk of being digitally excluded, including care leavers (young people ageing out of care and supervision programs), the elderly and refugees. Three were selected for a three-month pilot program that gave each program 10 tablets to lend to clients.
“People were using the tablets for exactly the kinds of things we wanted them to be able to do,” Jason Tutin says. For example, care leavers were using the tablets to search for jobs online and prepare for further education. One participating agency was teaching its refugee clients English as a second language. Tablet borrowers were learning in part by watching YouTube videos of English classes.
“But they were watching the videos in high definition, full screen, using the SIM card. That meant they were using up their 5GB mobile data allowance in a couple of days. This was a problem we had not anticipated.”
O2 brought IBM Business Partner Asavie, a technical partner for MaaS360, on board to provide mobile data control as part of the overall tablet management solution. Integrated into both MaaS360 and the SIM card, Asavie Moda monitors mobile data use and, when a consumption threshold of 2.5GB is met, throttles connectivity speed back to 2G or less. This significantly conserves data use while maintaining an acceptable level of service, even for watching videos.
“Without the controls offered by the Asavie Moda solution, we would have been faced with the difficult choice of unsustainable data costs or switching the SIM connection off when users reached the pre-set 5GB data limit,” says Jason Tutin, adding that the Asavie Moda functionality also locks the SIM card to the tablet so it can’t be used with another mobile device.
Following its successful proof of concept, the Leeds Library Service expanded its “inventory” to 150 tablets and is working with social service agencies and charities across the city to tackle digital exclusion and bring measurable improvements to the lives of Leeds citizens.
The program expansion is possible because of the control and efficiency offered by the UEM capabilities of MaaS360 and mobile data optimization and SIM controls from Asavie Moda. MaaS360 helps the Library Service protect the personal data of the agencies’ clients from online threats. Being able to wipe that personal data without deleting the preloaded links and apps enables the staff to quickly and easily turn around tablets for the next borrower.
The solution also provides comprehensive usage data that the Library Service can use to report on how the tablets are being used and thus measure the effectiveness of its program.
“If 20 tablets are loaned to a charity that deals with homelessness, for example, and 60 percent of the time they are used to access online housing services, we can report that impact back to City Council,” says Jason Tutin. “It’s a lot more effective than asking people to write down what websites they are visiting.”
Leeds Library Service operates 34 libraries across the city of Leeds in West Yorkshire, England. With an estimated population of 780,000, Leeds has become the largest legal and financial center outside London. The city is committed to making sure that all citizens benefit from its thriving economy and to increasing digital inclusion across at-risk populations. The Library Service is leading that effort with the 100% Digital Leeds initiative. To learn more, visit: www.digitalinclusionleeds.com (link resides outside of ibm.com).
Legal
© Copyright IBM Corporation 2018. IBM Security, 75 Binney Street, Cambridge MA 02142
Produced in the United States of America, September 2018
IBM, the IBM logo, ibm.com, MaaS360 and Watson are trademarks of International Business Machines Corp., registered in many jurisdictions worldwide. Other product and service names might be trademarks of IBM or other companies. A current list of IBM trademarks is available on the web at “Copyright and trademark information” at ibm.com/trademark.
This document is current as of the initial date of publication and may be changed by IBM at any time. Not all offerings are available in every country in which IBM operates. Not all offerings are available in every country in which IBM operates.
The client examples cited are presented for illustrative purposes only. Actual performance results may vary depending on specific configurations and operating conditions.
It is the user’s responsibility to evaluate and verify the operation of any other products or programs with IBM products and programs.
THE INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT IS PROVIDED “AS IS” WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WITHOUT ANY WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND ANY WARRANTY OR CONDITION OF NON-INFRINGEMENT. IBM products are warranted according to the terms and conditions of the agreements under which they are provided.
The client is responsible for ensuring compliance with laws and regulations applicable to it. IBM does not provide legal advice or represent or warrant that its services or products will ensure that the client is in compliance with any law or regulation.
Statement of Good Security Practices: IT system security involves protecting systems and information through prevention, detection and response to improper access from within and outside your enterprise. Improper access can result in information being altered, destroyed or misappropriated or can result in damage to or misuse of your systems, including to attack others. No IT system or product should be considered completely secure and no single product or security measure can be completely effective in preventing improper access. IBM systems and products are designed to be part of a comprehensive security approach, which will necessarily involve additional operational procedures, and may require other systems, products or services to be most effective. IBM does not warrant that systems and products are immune from the malicious or illegal conduct of any party.