REDMOND, Washington, April 15 /PRNewswire/ --
- Furthering the company's commitment to public safety, Microsoft
announces support of INTERPOL's Global Security Initiative.
Today at the Worldwide Public Safety Symposium, Microsoft Corp. announced
two ways the company is helping governments increase multiagency operational
effectiveness, reduce costs, and improve collaboration and information
sharing to help combat threats to public safety and security.
(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20000822/MSFTLOGO)
Introducing software solutions and services designed to help governments
respond in real time to threats to public safety, Microsoft launched the
Citizen Safety Architecture. Also today, Microsoft announced support of the
International Criminal Police Organization's (INTERPOL) Global Security
Initiative (GSI), which addresses international security challenges. Both
Citizen Safety Architecture and GSI are designed to improve public safety,
reduce crime and bring humanitarian relief to crisis situations demanding
collective action across multiple disparate groups.
"Given the direct correlation between the declining economy and the rise
of public safety concerns, there is a pressing need for innovative,
collaborative and integrated solutions, like Citizen Safety Architecture,
that deliver to governments the tools they need to ensure the safety of their
citizens," said Tim Bloechl, managing director for worldwide public safety
and national security at Microsoft. "Microsoft and INTERPOL recognize the
strong synergies between Citizen Safety Architecture and GSI, and our pledge
to develop a long-term relationship with organizations like INTERPOL supports
the overall goal of Citizen Safety Architecture."
Microsoft's Citizen Safety Architecture equips law enforcement,
intelligence agencies and emergency services with a platform that allows
access to services and rapid partner solution development. The result is a
fast and economical deployment of software and services solutions
specifically designed to improve public security and safety. By design,
Citizen Safety Architecture is based on familiar, proven Microsoft tools to
cost-effectively extend and augment organizations' existing IT investments.
These tools include Microsoft Single View Platform, (SVP), Microsoft FusionX,
Eagle, Microsoft Intelligence Framework, the Microsoft Incident Response
Platform and Global Security Operations Centers (GSOCs).
While the initiatives are independent, the goals of Citizen Safety
Architecture and INTERPOL's GSI are similar: They both create enhanced
information-sharing and connectivity frameworks addressing the need to
protect citizens both physically and virtually, and address the need to
synthesize data from a variety of sources. These common interests, along with
today's ceremonial signing of an agreement that Microsoft will provide its
Computer Online Forensic Evidence Extractor (COFEE) tool free of charge to
INTERPOL for international distribution, demonstrate the steps Microsoft and
INTERPOL are taking to develop a broader relationship. COFEE is a
Microsoft-developed application that uses common digital forensics tools to
help officers at the scene of a crime gather volatile evidence of live
computer activity that would otherwise be lost in a traditional offline
forensic analysis. Through the agreement, COFEE will be distributed to
INTERPOL's participating 187 countries around the world to aid global law
enforcement in addressing cybercrime.
"To meet 21st-century security threats, and equip global police forces
with cutting-edge tools, INTERPOL is forging strategic long-term partnerships
with global industry leaders such as Microsoft," said Elaine Dezenski,
managing director of INTERPOL's Global Security Initiative. "As the world's
global police organization, INTERPOL launched the GSI to partner with the
public and private sectors to establish initiatives that will address
security threats common to all stakeholders. Our broad, long-term
collaboration with Microsoft will raise security standards globally against
IT crime, and with COFEE will deliver a vital tool to law enforcement on the
front lines."
Both Citizen Safety Architecture and GSI are grounded in international
best practices and embrace the latest government and commercial standards to
underpin agile intra-agency and inter-agency collaboration and information
gathering. They are focused on delivering enhanced capabilities for
intelligence-gathering and investigation, but Citizen Safety Architecture
also delivers emergency response, transportation and border control, physical
security, and disaster and crisis management.
In addition, Citizen Safety Architecture draws upon Microsoft's
collective knowledge and expertise of a vibrant and growing ecosystem of both
international and local partners committed to developing powerful,
cost-effective Microsoft-based solutions tailored to public safety needs.
Scyron, a provider of security and surveillance solutions, is a Citizen
Safety Architecture partner currently working with the policing community and
is seeing the impact of Citizen Safety Architecture firsthand.
"Scyron is delighted to join Microsoft in the CSA initiative. We have a
special interest in the Microsoft Intelligence Framework, which offers
significant collaborative and information-sharing capabilities to assist in
'Intelligence-Led Policing,'" said Michael Wilks, CEO of Scyron Ltd. "This
fits in well with Scyron's DEMON suite of intelligent surveillance and
digital evidence management solutions already in use by many law enforcement
organizations around the world, such as Derbyshire Constabulary presenting at
the symposium."
By focusing on interoperable solutions that can work well in mixed
environments, evolve over time and serve the needs of constituents,
Microsoft's Citizen Safety Architecture is helping governments face global
security challenges.
"Gartner is seeing its public safety clients face more global threats of
both crime and terrorism, which defy previously understood neat boundaries
for certain government agencies," said Jeff Vining, research vice president
at Gartner Inc. "Effective action to foil criminals and terrorists demands
collective action across a disparate phalanx of groups. Technology that
enables diverse groups to communicate, collaborate and share critical
information holds the key to mobilizing effective resources against these
types of threats."
Solutions addressing critical infrastructure protection and major event
management will be added to Citizen Safety Architecture later this year.
About Microsoft's Worldwide Public Safety Symposium and Citizen Safety
Architecture
Microsoft's Worldwide Public Safety Symposium, running today through
April 16, 2009, brings together more than 300 national security operatives,
public safety professionals and criminal justice officials. Microsoft is
using the forum to demonstrate how the company is already delivering on the
Citizen Safety Architecture with a set of innovative software solutions and
services to help governments proactively plan for and effectively respond to
terrorist attacks, criminal acts and natural disasters:
-- Microsoft Single View Platform (SVP). SVP helps governments by
providing them with a single view of information and data, enabling
users to turn situational awareness into action. The platform can be
agency- or program-defined, depending on the program requirements and
the kind of information needed by the user or agency. Microsoft SVP is
an open, industry standards-based technology that provides a highly
integrated foundation for data visualization solutions in the area of
business intelligence, information sharing, workflow and business
processes, project management, and network systems. SVP partners
include Advantage Factory Inc., GreenLine Systems, IDV Solutions,
Information Strategies Inc., Infusion Development, I.S. Consulting
(ISC), The Mariner Group LLC, MicroLink LLC, Planet Technologies,
Projility and Twisted Pair Solutions Inc.
-- Microsoft FusionX. Built to support fusion centers, Microsoft FusionX
takes data from disparate sources across federal, state, local and
tribal governments, in addition to the private sector, and fuses it
into one complete picture to enhance awareness, planning, prevention
and incident response. Microsoft, in partnership with the Illinois
State Police and other law enforcement agencies, has designed a
technology platform and architecture for the sharing of law
enforcement intelligence that fills a critical void and could make the
world a safer place.
-- "Eagle." In the Netherlands Microsoft, Geodan and ESRI have
been working on an implementation of the Microsoft Citizen Safety
Architecture to deliver a suite of applications and services that
allow multiple agencies to collaborate seamlessly. The purpose is to
increase responsiveness and realize a single Common Operational
Picture to support fast and effective decision-making in a highly
complex environment. This cooperation has resulted in the "Eagle," a
solution where Microsoft Office Groove, Microsoft Office SharePoint
Server, Geodan Movida and ESRI ArcGIS are integrated together into a
disaster management information system winning the prominent Dutch
Public Safety Award 2008. Jan (J.Th.W.) Slakhorst, deputy director of
the fire bridgage and chief of disaster management for Crisis Region
Gelderland Midden, notes that the "Eagle" system is a perfect
collaboration platform for disaster management, saying, "It is
user-friendly, based on the daily routine. It is usable in different
scenarios, from railroad incidents up to extensive flood scenarios."
-- Microsoft Intelligence Framework. The Microsoft Intelligence Framework
(IF) helps local, national and international law enforcement and
intelligence-related organizations share information and work together
to provide a coordinated approach to preventing and detecting acts of
terrorism, and solving organized and major crime cases. The IF is the
result of a five-year collaborative partnership between Microsoft, its
partners and law enforcement agencies from around the world that faced
a common threat from cybercrime. The framework gives investigators the
tools for all-source analysis, which means they can store, search and
analyze a broad spectrum of potentially related investigative
information.
-- The Microsoft Incident Response Platform. The Microsoft Incident
Response platform provides an effective solution to provide process
and role guidance to incident responders, while the built-in
geospatial information viewer delivers timely situational information.
Microsoft Incident Response Platform is composed of solutions from
established Microsoft partners such as E-SPONDER, IDV Solutions,
Infonic and CRN Solutions Inc. These solutions help capture structured
data and facilitate the movement of this data both vertically and
horizontally.
-- Global Security Operations Centers. Microsoft maintains three
world-class 24x7 operations centers to monitor, communicate and
coordinate responses for more than 700 Microsoft sites worldwide. The
centers, located in the U.S., the U.K. and India, leverage solutions
such as Microsoft Office SharePoint Server, Microsoft Office InfoPath,
Microsoft Office Communicator and Microsoft Virtual Earth.
Additional information on the Public Safety Symposium and Microsoft's
vast Citizen Safety Architecture can be found at
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/events/pss/default.aspx.
About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) is the worldwide leader in
software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize
their full potential.