A contractor's standing often lives as permission letters in a folder. Renewal dates sit in someone's diary. A lapse turns up at audit instead of at renewal.
Staff files get built from photocopies re-keyed into a pass system, and one person can exist twice under two spellings. A name or date-of-birth variant between the copy and the government record sends the application back. The worker stays on payroll and cannot go airside.
A customs broker carries the licence consequence if a client turns out not to exist. That broker still receives the client's identifiers as emailed scans and files them as they arrive.