DHS, ICE Demos ATAK in San Diego

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has a very complementary and somewhat lengthy article on the use of ATAK for its “Smart Border” initiative.

Here’s an excerpt from the article:

A smartphone application that gives CBP frontline personnel instant information about their surroundings will vastly change how border crossings and other illegal activity is detected while improving officer and agent safety. Developed by the Air Force for the U.S. Special Operations Command the Team Awareness Kit connects surveillance devices used by Border Patrol and other CBP components.The app, demonstrated March 22 in San Diego, delivers topography, personnel locations, distances and mapping gleaned from multiple sensors to law enforcement and first responders. With just a glance to their handheld screens, agents can visualize their surroundings.Gaining an awareness of one’s
surroundings is a snap with the apps
multi-dimensional display.

Gaining an awareness of one’s surroundings is a snap with the apps multi-dimensional display. Photo by Jeff Underwood
Gaining an awareness of one’s surroundings is a snap with the apps multi-dimensional display. Photo by Jeff Underwood

 

The app reduces sending information to agents by radio from a central office, where transmissions can be intermittent and from multiple law enforcement components. Trying to visualize an unfolding event that way increases the time and quality of a response, notes Assistant Chief Chris Pietrzak, who’s the deputy program manager for the DHS Science & Technology’s Apex Border Situational Awareness Program.

Using the app is “the difference between getting directions over the phone or through Google Earth,” he explained. The technology is part of a “smart border” goal where “people get the right information at the right time.

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