NCJ Number
230960
Journal
Law Enforcement Technology Volume: 37 Issue: 5 Dated: May 2010 Pages: 60,62,64
Date Published
May 2010
Length
4 pages
Annotation
This article argues for and provides guidance in the use of standards that will ensure the successful transmission of vital public-safety data wherever and whenever it is needed.
Abstract
The growing and dispersed threat of terrorism and natural catastrophes have highlighted this need among public-safety and security agencies. IP-based protocols promote data convergence and help public-safety agencies on the path to achieving operational interoperability; however, without standards, barriers remain. Current standards play a vital role in solving challenges facing public-safety agencies. Standards for formatting and exchanging data include the Extensible Markup Language (SML) and the Standard Query Language (SQL). In addition, the standard for information exchange, the National Information Exchange Model (NIEM), provides the context in which to share data to enable information flow. As software and system providers produce applications that support these common data formatting and exchange standards, it will become easier to achieve true interoperability. Examples of emergency standards for interoperability are provided. The article notes, however, that achieving operational interoperability in today's world is a complex endeavor. Standards are required to enable the sharing of data for systems to begin exchanging data and commands in both a syntactic and semantic context, to derive information for decisionmaking, and to coordinate response efforts. Government agencies around the world must continue to fund pilot programs that will work through policy, doctrine, governance, and technology issues in driving standards forward. This article also reviews the significant progress in geospatial standards during the past decades. These standards are used to fuse information to create digital maps.