Guardians of Public Safety

Anthony Rosano, Director, Division of Emergency Management, Frederick County Government, Maryland

Anthony Rosano, Director, Division of Emergency Management, Frederick County Government, Maryland

The Right Kind of Leadership

Emergencies start and end at the local jurisdiction level, it’s a common, yet important motto in emergency management. As local government leaders, our goal is to make our counties and cities as resilient as possible to the many natural and man-made threats our communities face. Cybersecurity is the greatest emerging homeland security and public safety challenge we will see for many years. It has crept into the emergency management portfolio and in many cases, rightly so. And now, artificial intelligence (A.I.) is a foundation element of most cyber-attacks. But public safety professionals are not the technical specialists, we need subject matter experts and skilled staff to plan for and recover from cyber events. Emergency management does provide planning support and framework for the all-hazards mitigation, to include cyber incidents, while coordinating the applicable stakeholders through a broader continuity of operations lens. However, the technical teams, and their leaders, must be engaged early and often with the other public safety leaders for optimal response and recovery from major emergencies.

Falling Behind

Local governments, particularly public safety, are falling behind compared to the rate of growth in innovation. Public safety tools and software are being developed faster than ever before, particularly with artificial intelligence. Local governments are inundated with sales pitches for the next novel software that will solve all our problems. Vendor shows and conferences captivate us with realistic demos, but there are always the long-term implementation costs, and most often they are not scalable with different A.I. strategies or with the local cybersecurity philosophy. Emergency management and public safety already have difficulties properly securing all the technology that is being implemented as it is, let alone the advancements of what artificial intelligence and machine learning brings us.

“Cybersecurity is the greatest emerging homeland security and public safety challenge we will see for many years.”

Recruitment

Public safety departments are growing their technology sections faster than any other parts. But hiring is difficult with old-school government recruitment requirements, often including upper-level education, which often teaches technologies that are obsolete by graduation. Competing with private sector is more than difficult, and finding someone public-safety-focused is even harder. Homegrown, professional advancement is often relied on the development of the tech-savvy dispatcher, firefighter or police officer. But that won’t cut it in the future, not with the advancements we are seeing.

However, the allure of new, faster and shinier is always more appealing and outweighs organizational vulnerabilities. Societal changes are slowly occurring, along with increased expectations for faster, multimodal support for the citizens we serve.

Public safety will not look the same in 10 years, and we are not positioned to manage the public’s expectations for safety and security, while simultaneously properly securing every technology from cyber threats.

Collaboration is Vital

But risk avoidance is also not possible in public safety and homeland security. We cannot lock technology and systems down enough and still adequately respond to emergencies. First responders must be able to leverage technologies for faster, not slower response times. Protecting and equipping our local first responders with innovative and trusted technology and tools must remain a priority. To accomplish this, and frankly more importantly, leaders in public safety must come together more often, and work hand-in-hand on the public safety mission. This must include key IT staff and leaders – the Guardians.

We see first-hand internal fights between the IT Directors, Chief Technology Officers, and Chief Information Security Officers have with the public safety leaders within jurisdictions. IT departments are accused of “locking down” the systems so much they can’t be used. Public safety agencies are creating “shadow IT departments,” which also have unintended consequences counterproductive to design and coordination. We need to focus on building these collaborative coalitions and bringing CIOs/CTOs/CISOs into the public safety fold because they should have already been there. When we think public safety leadership, these Guardians must be sitting at the table with the other “Chiefs.” And vice versa, public safety leadership has to be able to inform the A.I. strategy and local cybersecurity philosophies. Emergency managers should be coordinating at the local level to ensure these collaborative mechanisms take place, but it takes all parties to do it effectively and to stay mission focused. The sooner we do this, the more secure and efficient we can respond to everyday emergencies and cyber event we all have been planning for.

Information Security

Cyber Threats

Machine Learning