The National Public Alerting System &The Multi-Agency Situational Awareness

System

Richard Moreau, Chief Interoperability Development Office

Public Safety Canada

The National Public Alerting System &The Multi-Agency Situational Awareness

System

Richard Moreau, Chief Interoperability Development Office

Public Safety Canada

DATE: May 1, 2012

RDIMS # 594356

2

PurposePurpose

● To provide an overview of national emergency alerting & information exchange initiatives in Canada:

The National Public Alerting System (NPAS); and

The Multi-Agency Situational Awareness System (MASAS)

Canadian Public Safety PriorityCanadian Public Safety Priority

● Published January 2011

Strategy updated every 3 years

Action Plan updated annually

● Identifies National Public Alerting System, MASAS and Common Alerting Protocol as national priorities

● Identifies roles and responsibilities...including shared governance

● Identifies investment priorities

3

4

National Public Alerting System National Public Alerting System

The Canadian

Public

Radio stations

Television stations

Internet providors

Voluntary Distributors

Wireless phone

Cable distributors

Satellite distributors

Alert Repository for Distributors

Pelmorex Collection,

Authentication and

Dissemination Center

EMO decides to issue alert.

Authorized User enters alert information into Pelmorex application.

Users are validated and alerts are checked for structure.

Distributors check repository for alerts. If there is an alert for their area, they ‘pull’ the content and then present it over the applicable media.

Alerts made available to the public through Permorex’s Specialty Channels plus other media.

EMOs = Emergency management organizations (provincial / territorial)GoC = Government of Canada departments / agencies

Distributor participation is on a voluntary basis with no validation that alerts have been distributed.

Originators Technical Solution

Provinces and Territories

GoC Federal Agencies

The Weather Network

MétéoMédia

Twitter, RSS feeds,

Subscription E-mail

Alerts are broadcast on Pelmorex’s specialty channels and placed in an alert repository for voluntary pick-up by distributors.

Distribution of Alerts

NAADS

Multi-Agency Situational Awareness System (MASAS)

Multi-Agency Situational Awareness System (MASAS)

● MASAS is a system-of-systems that facilitates the sharing of authoritative location-based situational awareness information, in near real-time, within Canada’s emergency management community and with international partners.

● MASAS connects emergency management partner systems by leveraging open interoperability standards, protocols and operational policies.

● Implementation of MASAS is a priority for F/P/T interoperability partners – Action Item in the Communications Interoperability Action Plan for Canada.

● MASAS national implementation initiative (development & operational support) is a partnership of:

Defence R&D Canada - Centre for Security Science Natural Resources Canada - Mapping Information Branch Public Safety Canada - Interoperability Development Office

MASASCost-Efficient & Cost-Effective Approach

MASASCost-Efficient & Cost-Effective Approach

● Real-time alerting & information dissemination can lead to increased awareness and decreased response times

● Faster information processing through geographic visualization and standard messaging reduces confusion; allows more time for emergency management

● Collaboration via MASAS lowers costs for all participants, as existing investments in data & decision support tools will be re-usable across Canada

● Reduced information silos & duplication

● No new tools required

MASAS: Information Sharing ModelMASAS: Information Sharing Model

Your Tool

s

Their Tool

s

Firewall Firewall

GIS, IMS, CAD, sensors, analytics, etc.

Desktop or mobile

Your Tool

sYour Tools

Their Tool

sTheir Tools

Share information once with all... rather than once with each

Location and Event type Urgency, severity, certainty

Status Time Response types Link to more information

8

Multi Agency Situational Awareness System (MASAS)Multi Agency Situational Awareness System (MASAS)

Training

MASAS Basic

Toolset

MASAS Basic

Toolset

MASAS Information Exchange (MASAS-X)MASAS Information Exchange (MASAS-X)

Your Tools

Their Tools

Firewall Firewall

ESRI, EmerGeo, Interdev, Sentinel, IHS,

CriSys, Command View, IDV, MyStateUSA,

SharePoint, Hazus, …, basic MASAS tools

Your Tools

Your Tools

Their ToolsTheir

Tools

Incident management, mapping, dispatch, consoles, tablets,

smartphones, sensors, digital radio, …

9

Exercise

Ops

MASAS: Current StatusMASAS: Current Status

● As of November 1st , 2011 MASAS-X has gone live with integral dedicated technical support.

● MASAS-X is available for training, exercise and operational use.

● Strong national interest/engagement from all F/P-T/M, Critical Infrastructure stakeholders.

Fed: GOC-TC-DND-RCMP, HC, EC P: NB, BC, ON, MB, AB, PEI North: PS Regional, JTF-N, YU, NWT Municipalities: Many Utilities, CI and Industry

● Strong cross-border interest / engagement MASAS – US IPAWS MASAS – vUSA (Virtual USA)

10

CA-US Public Safety PriorityCA-US Public Safety Priority

Beyond the Border

Action Plan

Page 25: “The second working group will focus on cross-border interoperability as a means of harmonizing cross-border emergency communications efforts. It will pursue activities that promote the harmonization of the Canadian Multi-Agency Situational Awareness System with the United States Integrated Public Alert and Warning System to enable sharing of alert, warning, and incident information to improve response coordination during binational disasters. Specifically, this working group will...”

11

Working with DHS S&T Virtual USA Program as well.

12

Common Alerting Protocol, Canadian Profile (CAP-CP) Common Alerting Protocol, Canadian Profile (CAP-CP)

● Defines rules for Canadian implementations

Defined within constraints of CAP – fully compliant

Defines list of Canadian event and location codes

Addresses requirements for languages

Makes it mandatory to use a Canadian event and location code

Limits each alert to only one event type

Systems/users may limit the lists, impose additional rules (“layer”)– Ex. Broadcast intrusive list

13

Governance for CAP Canadian Profile

Governance for CAP Canadian Profile

14

Alerting Business / Policy ChallengesAlerting Business / Policy Challenges

● National efforts includes long list of stakeholders with individual needs / business considerations. Stakeholders include:

● EMOs in 13 Provinces/Territories (serving 1000s of alert issuing organizations in their jurisdictions)

● Multiple Federal EMOs and alert issuing organizations (e.g. Environment Canada)

● Public-Private Partnerships (e.g. Pelmorex NAADS)● Canadian public - ~34 Million

● Language diversity

● Cross-border emergencies and information sharing

Next StepsNext Steps

15

Canada’s Emergency Alerting Priorities for 2012-13 include:

NPAS/NAADS

-implementation of an end-to-end national public

alerting system

-common look and feel guidelines / standards

-support expansion of public alerting to wireless

devices

CAP-CP

-Establishing Change Management Process w/

Governance

-Standing up Technical Specification Committees

and initiating management cycle

-CAP-CP 1.0

MASAS

Support national implementation:

-operationalizing national MASAS and interface with P/T systems

-national GIS system

-high-level SA architecture

-Information exchange SOPs

-Operations Centre Interconnectivity Portal

-high-resilience environment

Support information sharing during binational diasters:-Canada/U.S. information sharing MOU/MOA for IPAWS-MASAS

16

Thank you & Contact InformationThank you & Contact Information

Thank you!

If you have any questions, comments or would like to receive further information, please contact us:

Richard Moreau, Chief, Interoperability Development Office

Richard.Moreau@ps-sp.gc.ca

613-991-6053

Jeff Boyczuk, Senior Program Officer

Jeff.Boyczuk@ps-sp.c.ca

613-991-5272