INSS: System failure cancels skills; see what to do – 03/24/2023 – Market

A failure in the internet systems of the INSS (National Institute of Social Security) has affected service at Social Security agencies, causing the cancellation of requests, especially the scheduling of medical examinations.

The outage may have affected around 50 thousand benefits between this Thursday (23) and Friday (24), according to information obtained by the report of Sheet. This year, interruptions in the INSS systems have been constant and harmed policyholders.

The order queue reached 1.8 million in February. In May 2022, just waiting for expertise, there were 1 million policyholders.

The INSS confirmed that there were problems with the internet network in different units in the country this Friday. According to the institute, “the intermittent signal caused the crash of systems and made service to policyholders unfeasible”.

Telebras, responsible for the service, was called in and is providing repairs, says the agency. “The services impacted by the intercurrence are being rescheduled”, says the institute in a note.

According to the operational technical director of Telebras, Luís Fernando de Freitas, what happened was a hardware problem detected on Wednesday night, after oscillations in the systems, classified by him as “unforeseen and inevitable.

According to Freitas, the teams are working 24 hours a day to remedy the failures as soon as possible. The forecast is to make the repairs until the end of the week, but it may be that the repair takes place before. Telebras is implementing a new network in several public bodies, including the INSS, which will have faster internet.

“The INSS today has more or less 1,685 branches. We have already implemented this new system in almost 400 branches”, says Freitas.

An INSS employee, who asked not to be identified, said that the problem started on Monday (20) and compromised service in some branches also on Thursday (23) and Friday (24). According to the employee, people who were waiting for medical expertise were not attended.

The failure would be linked to the provision of internet by Telebras. As a result, the internal and external systems, managed by Dataprev (a federal government technology company), were not working.

Even after Telebras spent the night performing maintenance, in the states of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, the instability still persisted this Friday, with no time for the systems to return to normal.

Dataprev also took a position, informing that the failure is linked to a “network unavailability”, under the responsibility of Telebras. “In the last two days (23rd and 24th), network and internet unavailability was recorded in some branches of the institute”, says the company.

What the INSS insured person should do if there are failures in the system

Lawyer Rômulo Saraiva, pension specialist and columnist for Sheetstates that the insured person affected by the problem in the INSS systems must try to prove that the failure was for “a reason beyond his control”, he says, so as not to run the risk of having the benefit rejected due to “absence of the worker”.

In general, policyholders are not advised of the cancellation of care, especially medical expertise. The citizen who went through this situation should ask for a statement from the agency or a photo identifying the failure.

Adriane Bramante, president of the IBDP (Brazilian Institute of Social Security Law), tells the insured person to immediately reschedule the appointment. There are cases, according to her, in which the INSS itself gets in touch to reschedule, so it is important to keep data updated in the system, such as address, telephone and email.

“If the breakdown was on the day of the inspection, perhaps the insured is already with the INSS. In this case, the rescheduling will be done by them right away. Generally, that’s what happens, you find out on the day of the inspection, going there, because you can’t time for the system to indicate the breakdown and notify the insured”, he says.

The SINSSP (Union of Social Service Workers in the State of São Paulo) confirms that the instabilities in the systems have been constant. Added to these are the lack of civil servants, reduced face-to-face assistance, closed branches, delays and delays in granting benefits and other requirements from policyholders.

“And what has the INSS management been doing? Very little or almost nothing”, says a note from the union. “Something very wrong is happening and we don’t see anyone from the INSS management taking responsibility for these failures and errors.”