By Calvin Biesecker
Achieving interoperability today among various first responders is not a matter of making different technologies work together but rather finding ways for different groups of responders to work out ways to communicate more efficiently and effectively, the Department of Homeland Security’s technology chief said last week.
“Interoperability is my number one challenge,” Jay Cohen, under secretary for Science and Technology at DHS, said at the Navy League’s annual Sea, Air and Space conference. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is not a technology problem.”
Cohen said that “culture and governance” are the main obstacles to improving communications between various agencies such as police and fire departments. The technology already exists to link different networks and types of devices and it’s called “middleware,” he said.
He described the challenge as being one where a city police chief requires policemen at a scene to communicate to him while he in turn talks to the fire marshal, who in turn relays information to his firefighters, who are at the same scene standing right beside the police officers.
But, Cohen said, there’s not much he can do to solve the culture gaps between these agencies other than through “leadership by embarrassment.”
Given the Defense Department’s role in homeland defense through Northern Command, Cohen said that DHS must be interoperable with DoD.
“I believe we must be fully compatible with the high-end standards,” Cohen said. And as the DHS official in charge of test and evaluation, Cohen said he gets to set those standards.
Another important area is maritime domain awareness, and Cohen said the question here is, “How can we bring a NORAD (North American Air Defense Command) fidelity to the waters.”