By: Jack M. Germain

New technology is improving situational awareness for police officers and other first responders by minimizing response times and streamlining data sharing among agencies.

Advancements in high-tech for first responders might be essential in keeping police, firefighters, and EMTs on the job. Almost half (44%) of first responders surveyed said they considered leaving their jobs due to work-related stressors.

Being a first responder is not an easy job, noted Matt Polega, co-founder and head of external affairs at Mark43, who developed a public safety software platform allowing agencies to manage, share, collect, and analyze information more efficiently.

Solving such problems related to job stress and safety concerns is a common element driving some high-tech companies to focus on the needs of workers patrolling the streets on the domestic front lines. Public safety technology is not a one-size-fits-all proposition. Often it overlaps. Sometimes, it drastically innovates.

Tech Innovations for First Responders

TechNewsWorld went behind the scenes recently, presenting an exclusive interview with the founder of the Critical Response Group (CRG). That company adapted military concepts to map interior schematics for law enforcement’s emergency response strategies.

In this article, we continue discussing the role technology plays in efforts by software developers and hardware makers to assist those agencies that serve public safety. One such company is Mark43, which designed a line of software solutions that run on desktop and laptop computers as well as squad car-based computer terminals.

New technology, such as the Mark43 communications platform, enables real-time views on squad car screens so responding units can be better informed of event scenes before they arrive, improving their safety and efficiency. (Image Credit: Mark43)

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The company’s Mark43 lineup options are entirely cloud-based, which minimizes staff training because the applications run in a variety of web browsers. The result is a much less costly, and technically easier upgrade path to successfully transitioning to high-tech, stress-free. The only new cost is the cloud-delivery subscription, which varies.

“Cloud native is something that Mark43 hangs its hat on. That means our application is built to live in the cloud. The things that power the cloud power Mark43,” Polega told TechNewsWorld.

Storybook Trappings

In Marvel’s “Iron Man 3” movie, the hero called his new battle attire the Mark 42. It was the forty-second version of the crimefighting exoskeleton he built. Polega and his two other co-founders — Scott Crouch (also CEO) and Florian Mayr (also vice president) — named their new company Mark43 in honor of its next-generation crimefighting gear.

The trio met and started working together a decade ago as Harvard University juniors pursuing either mechanical or electrical engineering degrees. Their job in a particular class was to work with a client on an engineering project.

Harvard was very interested in developing engineers that were not only focused on why heat exchangers work and how bridges bend. The focus was also on helping them understand that someday they would have to work with people to solve their problems. They have been doing that ever since, quipped Polega.

That third-year class project involved something other than figuring out kinetic operations and physically breaking down structures. The job entailed working with the Massachusetts State Police special operations team that had spent time serving in a military capacity in the Middle East. That led the state police team to an aha moment. Domestic violent gang members behaved very much like insurgents in the Middle East.

Their quandary was about how to bring all the counter-insurgency tactics from the battlefield to combat domestic gangs and gang violence. Polega and company dug in to do just that. The tasks involved getting people comfortable with calling the police, cleaning up graffiti, or reducing open-air drug dealings.

“The state police were rolling out this new policing model, and our job in this crazy engineering class was to assess if this policing model was effective or not effective. Fast forward 10 years later, you realize that three juniors with engineering degrees that had no idea about policing or complex socioeconomics,” recalled Polega.

They learned to do all of those non-academic things and use engineering principles to solve those barriers. It was a much bigger project than the three wannabe engineers anticipated.

More Than Teachable Moments

The project prepared the three students to see that all of the software they were using was not like the wizardry found in TV shows, the likes of NCIS, CSI, and any of the other cool Hollywood TV shows using “stage” technology. Their professor gave them a goal — try to build something to help out the state police somehow.

The trio worked on that for the rest of their junior and senior years. After graduating in 2014, they went to the Washington D.C. Metropolitan Police Department, where they met a similar challenge. The police officials said: We don’t really know what you guys do, but we have some problems; and they said: we don’t really know what your problems are, but we can show you some of our solutions.

“We started to really understand all this analytical stuff and all these business intelligence tools. They were cool, and everybody wanted to build them, sell them, and get them into police agencies. But the real problem was collecting the data and capturing the information in a way it can be consumed online for all the important things police officers need to do if that information goes to court,” explained Polega.

The Mark43 platform provides first responders with a 3D aerial view of patrol car video screen displays that show the target incident location and position of responding patrol cars in a red diamond outline. (Image Credit: Mark43)

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Their encounters with police departments and other first responder agencies further taught them the scope of the job performance the software they built had to arrest. For instance, when dispatched, police officers have to write reports about anything they encounter in the field and the kind of incident to which they respond.

Those reports had to be completed and submitted from computer terminals back at headquarters. Doing that on a daily basis took officers off the streets where they were no longer protecting and serving.

The burden of constantly preparing reports for incidents, accidents, confrontations, and court records drastically reduced the manpower available to respond to calls for many of their assigned shifts.

Engineering a New Solution

The dynamic trio of engineers solved that problem. After Polega, Crouch, and Mayr finished their work for the Washington D.C. Police Department in August 2015, they launched the company’s first product, a records management system.

It was the precursor of the Mark43 they later developed. This earlier model of the records management system handled the collection of on-duty arrest and traffic collision reports. It was a real operational system in place before Mark43 was fully designed, Polega noted.

An outgrowth of the three young engineers’ work with the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police Department led to the development of in-vehicle software that integrates with computers in HQ. (Image Credit: Mark43)

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“I hate to call it TurboTax for police reports. But that is actually a pretty apt description,” said Polega. “We left Washington, D.C. having improved that agency’s arrest reporting times by 80% and offense reporting times by about 50%.”

Another much-needed result was the department’s ultimately adding 110 police officers back to the force, which is the equivalent of 240,000 person-hours back-to-back to the agency annually.

Existing Technology, Turbocharged

If you have ever observed a modern-day emergency call center or viewed TV police reality shows, you are familiar with a command center staffed with multiple dispatchers. Each one sits in front of numerous large-screen monitors.

That high-tech concept is somewhat like what many large first responder organizations have in their regional dispatch centers. Smaller agencies operate scaled-down versions of that scenario.

The online demonstration Kevin Fray, director of solutions architecture at Mark43, demonstrated showed off the power and operating ease the Mark43 system brought to patrol officers in their vehicles and their call centers. Writing reports and instantly accessing updated video data from dispatchers is a significant game changer for first responders.

Police dispatchers miles away at a central communication center use a variety of large-screen displays to oversee police and emergency response units in real time. (Image Credit: Mark43)

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During our Zoom call screen-share, Fray displayed reports, area maps, aerial views, and much more on multiple call center monitors that showed what dispatchers would see at their workstations and the officer’s view in the patrol car. Similar to using automobile navigational apps and multitasking, Fray showed how the Mark43 navigation worked with Alt-Tab keys and touch screen to change the screen displays.

“I am [using] modern browsers — Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Safari. So from an end-user perspective, and just think about this from a technology perspective, you do not need to go out and buy a bunch of computers or anything as long as you have your typical standard desktop, or even laptops, and have access to the internet,” Fray told TechNewsWorld.

Other Mark43 Benefits

One of the main assets of this innovative communications platform, noted Fray, is the ability to put the mapping power in the dispatchers’ hands. The system is capable of displaying many kinds of data layers. Responders to an emergency can see live views of traffic, accidents, active shooter locations, and even views of crime locations while en route.

Another display enables dispatchers to keep in constant touch with first responders in real time and instantly shepherd updated information to wherever it is needed. (Image Credit: Mark43)

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“This is cutting edge. No one else in the industry is doing this. A lot of public-sector agencies have relied on Esri to do their mapping technology. We have built Esri directly into our mapping technology,” noted Fray.

Another Mark43 benefit is its resilience to sharing information. The system has a reliable workflow that lets officers automate much of the report-writing tasks and enter information on-the-fly while remaining on patrol. Many older products require additional data stitching when officers get back to headquarters and try to integrate content written on the patrol car’s mobile computers.

Often, data collection needs to be changed, Fray added, but the in-car and in-station entry fields are not always compatible. Those two products will not work very well together, especially if different vendors maintain them.

By: Marissa Sulek

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WSMV) – Two years ago, on the day of the Christmas bombing, AT&T phone lines went down impacting all calls to Nashville’s 911 center.

It stopped person-to-person communication, but it did not cut off the computer-aided dispatch, or CAD, system where calls are recorded.

If the chain-linked fence, number of hard hats or levels of scaffolding don’t give it away, renovations after the Second Avenue Christmas Day bombing are still a work in progress. Progress in on the ground and inside the Nashville Emergency Communications Center.

John Reynolds is the computer-aided dispatch administrator. It’s the system where dispatchers record each call’s location and reason. He was one of the few employees at the center the morning of the Christmas Day bombing when phone lines went down.

“With our call volume, it’s too hard to manage that many incidents and units,” Reynolds said.

“We were not able to take non-emergency phone calls, administrative calls for about 72 hours,” Nashville Emergency Communications Center Director Stephen Martini said.

He knew changes must be made not only to the phone lines, but the CAD system too.

“If there’s anything the Christmas explosion let us know is we are vulnerable if we have all our eggs in once basket,” Martini said.

There’s where Matt Polega, co-founder of Mark43, comes in.

“He (Martini) said, ‘I want to make sure that we are never in that situation again where we are going to be facing any kind of difficulty to the residents of Nashville,” Polega said.

Currently, when the CAD goes down at the center, the backup is a sheet of paper. Dispatchers must record each call by hand, at times logging 100 calls an hour.

Now, if it goes down, the Mark43 system will kick in.

“Realistically, dispatchers could do this from home,” Polega said.

All they need is a computer and internet connection and they won’t miss a call.

“It’s really chaotic here because phones are ringing and people are changing their workflow and they can’t use their computer and write things on paper, and then that piece of paper and run it to another position,” Reynolds said.

He believes the new back-up system will cover all bases if something like the Christmas Day bombing were to happen again.

“In an event like that, where you have increased incidents and double the units because of the event, this can be extremely valuable,” Reynolds said.

The Nashville Emergency Communications Center added more phones lines as a backup option after the Christmas Day bombing. The new CAD system is paid for by the Davidson County Emergency Communications Board. Martini said it costs a fraction of what a normal CAD system does.

Original Story: https://www.wsmv.com/2023/01/01/nashvilles-911-center-gets-back-up-computer-system-after-christmas-day-bombing/

By: VB Staff

According to a new 2023 U.S. Public Safety Trends Report from Mark43, utilizing insights from a nationwide first responder survey, modern policing requires modern technology. In fact, 86% of first responders want improved access to crime and incident reporting that leverages the reliability, security and resiliency of cloud software.

And, over half (57%) say their agency would benefit from an integrated platform to streamline their reporting responsibilities.

One central theme woven throughout the report is that technology plays a vital role in everything a public safety agency does. It must be integrated into all aspects of organizational activity. The technology cannot be an add-on or an afterthought, and this realization is a critical step forward for the entire sector’s future.

2022 saw the start of public safety agencies recognizing the intense need to move their computer aided dispatch (CAD), records management system (RMS) and analytics technology away from an on-premises solution, where physical servers are locally managed. Instead, they are moving toward cloud-native platforms where computing resources such as networks, servers, storage, applications and services are all in the cloud.

Additionally, the pandemic, an uptick in weather emergencies and cyberattacks, as well as associated security vulnerabilities have made it increasingly difficult to justify the usage of on-premises systems. The report indicates this is a welcome change, with over 2/3 (68%) of respondents stating that they must go to a physical location, such as a station house or office, to complete required paperwork instead of using cloud technology to complete these tasks digitally and from any offsite location.

Fortuitously, first responders have accepted the need for mobile phones on the job. With 93% relying on their devices for emergency dispatch software, capturing evidence and connecting with their colleagues and the community.

Overall, this new trend report underscores first responders’ desire for 2023 to be the year we see an industry-wide change as moves to cloud-native platforms accelerate for public safety organizations.

A national online survey of 343 first responders was conducted by Propeller Insights between October 6 and October 18, 2022.

Read the full report by Mark43.

Original Story: https://venturebeat.com/data-infrastructure/report-86-of-first-responders-want-modernized-reporting-technology/

By: Robert Lemos, Contributing Writer

Cybersecurity threats have become commonplace for police departments, first responders, and other public-safety groups, with 93% of organizations experiencing a cybersecurity issue in the past year.

That’s according to a report released on Dec. 8 by cloud platform provider Mark43, based on a survey of 343 first responders. The 2023 U.S. Public Safety Trends Report found that 76% of first responders had concerns that their IT systems are vulnerable to ransomware attacks and data breaches.

At the same time, the vast majority of first responders must deal with outdated technology and disconnected systems, with 68% of public-safety officers required to file paperwork from the office rather than in the field, and 67% of first responders encountering issues with inefficient technology, according to the report.

While adopting technology can solve many issues that currently plague first responders, most state and local agencies do not have the technical expertise to protect such technology against threats, says Larry Zorio, chief information security officer for Mark43, which provides information systems for law-enforcement and first responder agencies.

“These agencies in many cases do not have a dedicated security staff who can worry about these issues all day, ensuring that data is backed up and running vulnerability scans,” he says. “To the the [cybersecurity] community, these are table stakes — you need to be doing patching, you need to be doing vulnerability scanning … but these agencies are realizing that they cannot protect themselves from these risks on their own.”

First responders’ cybersecurity concerns are not unwarranted. In 2019 and 2020, ransomware groups started targeting state, local, tribal, and territorial (SLTT) government agencies in earnest. In 2019, for example, 22 town agencies and local government organizations were targeted with a coordinated ransomware attack disrupting services for citizens. Ransomware attacks on local school systems impacted education for at least 753,000 students during 2019 and 1.2 million in 2020.

And in 2021, the FBI warned that ransomware spread by the Conti cybercriminals group had targeted at least 16 healthcare and first responder networks. In September 2022, a ransomware attack disrupted 911 service for Suffolk County, NY.

Targeting First Responders

These attacks carry with them additional risks for citizens, the FBI stated in its 2021 advisory.

“Cyberattacks targeting networks used by emergency services personnel can delay access to real-time digital information, increasing safety risks to first responders and could endanger the public who rely on calls for service to not be delayed,” the advisory stated. “Loss of access to law enforcement networks may impede investigative capabilities and create prosecution challenges.”

In general, the information technologists believe that ransomware attacks will continue at the same pace. The vast majority of IT professionals (84%) see ransomware as a significant threat to businesses, according to a study commissioned by Ransomware.org. In addition, 41% of IT professional believe their company is more likely to be a target this year, and 43% believe the threat will remain the same.

Cloud Adoption Lags

For first responders, the cybersecurity threats are balanced against the slow adoption of technology that could make their jobs and operations more efficient. While the majority of first responders believe that an integrated system for reporting would streamline operations, only a quarter of first responder organizations (27%) have moved to the cloud — two-thirds have not, the Mark43 survey found.

The Mark43 survey found that compliance and data transparency are also significant concerns for first responders, with 86% of respondents asking for improved crime reporting and two-thirds of those surveyed wanting more public transparency.

The agencies need to prioritize technology, data management, and cybersecurity roles. Instead, cybersecurity is often tasked to untrained IT workers inside the department or to officers that are nearing retirement, Zorio says.

“I don’t feel that officers, who are trying to serve our communities, the fact that they are worried about that every day is definitely a concern,” he says. “The industry in general needs to help them where we can, because it is not their job to worry about cybersecurity.”

The survey defined cybersecurity issues as both malicious attacks by cybercriminals and availability problems caused by attacks.

Original Story: https://www.darkreading.com/remote-workforce/lack-cybersecurity-expertise-poses-threat-public-safety-orgs