Office Interoperability and Compatibility (OIC)

OIC tasked Noblis to investigate the need for video quality standards to assist with the use of video by public safety officers. The value of surveillance video to a practitioner can vary widely and is impacted by several factors. This unique research is motivated by the fact that the evidence value of surveillance video is principally driven by quality, which in turn determines its potential uses. Specifically, Noblis addresses the lack of publicly available studies that empirically measure video quality as it relates to public safety applications. For example while questioning an unidentified and non-cooperative suspect, police can leverage surveillance video to identify other times an individual was present at a location. Furthermore, video can be used to establish the identity of the individual. At police checkpoints video can be used to search for known suspects. In such applications video is referenced against a watch list containing images of known individuals of interest. These types of video recognition applications have specific needs in order to meet evidence objectives for law enforcement. To aid law enforcement agencies properly and effectively deploy these critical technologies, significant further development of measurable video quality standards is needed. Such standards are necessary to certify deployments for use in video identification or classification applications. These standards will further legitimize video surveillance systems as indispensible law enforcement tools.  

Security Framework Report – Noblis was tasked with the development of a comprehensive communications security framework. The framework focuses on new and difficult areas of security in wireless networks such as user credential (identity) interoperability, mutual authentication (i.e., user-to-network and network-to-user authentication) and authorization.   Another aspect of the framework focuses on the credential and authentication framework synergy that exists with both P25 radio systems and physical security systems. The scope of the research consists of the reporting of results of the first two aspects of the framework; demonstration of a security framework proof-of-concept, and presentation of comments and recommendations on the Public Safety (PS SoR Volume I) and 700 MHz Statement of Requirements. In addition, the lessons learned from the above will be used to influence the standards bodies focusing on communications systems including radio internetworking of P25 systems, over the air programming (OTAP), and direct radio-to-radio used by public safety practitioners for voice communications when they are not within network coverage. The framework lays the foundation for future P25 standardization development efforts.   Likewise, the framework applies to cognitive radios, but cognitive radio development falls outside the scope of this effort. The framework also provides the ability to answer whether Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) is a feasible technology to meet public safety’s requirements, noting that the framework is not restricted to PKI.