Issue link: https://securitytechnologyexecutive.epubxp.com/i/557126
July/August 2015 • SECURITY TECHNOLOGY EXECUTIVE 17 www.SecurityInfoWatch.com The growth in information technology and social media has presented new opportunities for public-private partnerships. Law enforcement and government agencies can use communications and cyber intelligence solutions to intercept, monitor and analyze communications to build the evidence needed to neutralize terrorism and crime. Photo Courtesy of Houston TranStar, Ed Schipul Technology sources, such as video manage- ment software, intelligent analytics, situational awareness platforms and audio recordings, allow cities to integrate critical data from disparate resources to provide officials with a holistic view of overall operations across the region and realize new levels of situational awareness during nat- ural disasters, terrorist attacks or large events. Cities can track a suspect from a stadium to a subway station, onto the train or to a park across town with comprehensive video surveillance sys- tems. With public-private partnerships, officials can even access surveillance data captured by pri- vate surveillance networks, such as retail and cor- porate facilities, or even participating residential properties. This approach allows officials to gain new levels of intelligence, and respond effectively to events no matter where they occur. The Value of Collaboration For many years, public-private partnerships were primarily conceptual because of concerns about privacy and the use of shared data. One of the largest and most common questions is, "Who has access to the data and for what purpose?" When multiple agencies are involved, this question is bound to evolve. Local government officials and legal teams can help address these concerns by establishing memorandums of understanding (MOUs), between agencies and private-sector organizations, enabling all parties to agree to share critical security and business data with one another, and implement best practices for data security and storage. While there may not be a single standard or template to follow when establishing a public- private partnership, there are real-world exam- ples that provide best practices for setting up such initiatives. The city of Guayaquil, the most populous city in Ecuador with more than 3.7 million people in its metropolitan area, devel- oped a Safe City program through the Guayaquil Corporation for Public Safety, a non-profit cor- poration that coordinates public safety efforts within the city. The project started as a small pilot project and today boasts a robust public safety network that includes more than 800 public and private cameras. The solution helps ensure area safety and augments the efforts of security operations, law enforcement and first responders. City officials also leverage it for other applications such as traffic management and streamlined waste collection. In Surat, India, the Gujarat state government spearheads the Safe City concept. The project is an ongoing collaboration between multiple