A new tool called the Electronic Recovery and Access to Data Prepaid Card Reader allows police officers to check the balance of cards, including credit and debit cards, gift cards, hotel key cards, library cards, and Metro cards. The device will be useful because criminals rarely travel with stacks of paper money anymore.

When Illinois deployed its first state computer system in 1974, Hardik Bhatt was just 2 years old. Since then, Illinois has deployed thousands of systems–one for every 20 of the state’s 60,000 employees, to be exact–with little or no thought given to how they should all work together. Forty-two years later, Illinois’ IT challenges have […]