Page 46 - FCW, September/October 2020

CaseStudy
On-the-fly info sharing for first responders
The Department of Homeland Security is funding technologies that would make it easier for multiple jurisdictions to work together during emergencies
BY STEPHANIE KANOWITZ
Oasys International and Waverley Labs are developing complementary technologies to address a long-standing challenge for first responders: securely and seamlessly sharing information to gain common situational awareness in an emergency.
In August, the Department of Homeland Security’s Small Business Innovation Research program awarded a total of $1.97 million to the companies under Phase II of the Identity, Credential and Access Management (ICAM) On-the-Fly project. Both companies won Phase I awards to develop proofs of concept last year.
Today, to get access to another jurisdiction’s IT system, first responders often have to call a
help desk and submit a request that systems administrators might act on in minutes — or hours or days.
“Their ability to be quickly added to that system is just not practical in an operational environment,” said Norman Speicher, a program manager in DHS’ Science and Technology Directorate. “Without that shared view, they’re certainly not working as efficiently and effectively as possible.”
ICAM On-the-Fly could change that.
“Oasys and Waverley were unique because...they’re both satisfying the primary objectives of ICAM On-the- Fly, but they have complementary solutions in two particular areas,” Speicher said.
Waverley focuses on a secure perim- eter inside which responders’ creden- tials are established and then “become
a part of this federation, almost a group to be trusted in that moment in time, for the duration of the incident.”
He added that “Oasys’ biggest strength had to do with the way they were determining application access and how that ultimately controlled what data [the responders] could see, what applications they could see.”
Oasys is building an event management system that will support enhanced and streamlined ICAM functions for responders at large planned events, and Waverley is further developing its Dynamic AccessID Network and Toolkit.
AccessID allows crisis managers to dynamically associate disparate credentials and devices with first responder systems. They can cre- ate ad hoc networks, organize par-
46 September/October 2020 FCW.COM