About the BorderSafe Project

The BorderSafe project positions SDSC as a neutral testbed, set within an applied research environment, to address the inter-agency data-sharing and analysis challenges brought to light in the post-9/11 era.

SDSC's role is that of non-operational, research and development component within which to test data sharing and interoperability tools and techniques. The results generated within this testbed will significantly help define the appropriate technical, policy and procedural uses of this data sharing in a real world, operational setting.

As part of this mission, not only does the project attempt to understand existing domain obstacles, tools and efforts, but is also investigating the use of DAKS technologies to help solve various aspects of the problem.

Close collaboration with domain practitioners and institutions such as ARJIS (Automated Regional Justice Information System), which represents more than 50 law-enforcement agencies, as well as a strict conscientiousness with regard to appropriate handling of sensitive data, differentiates this project from other related efforts recently seen in the media.

The BorderSafe project pursues its goals through the following parallel efforts:

• Evaluating and deploying sharing and analysis tools, technologies and evolving specifications
• Evaluating and educating the community about the applicability of various data mining techniques within the context of Homeland Security and Law Enforcement
• Data privacy research
• Investigating privacy technologies related to data-sharing, and analysis
• Privacy technologies at various levels ( Protocols, Appliances, Frameworks for interoperable privacy-enhancing technologies )
• Researching technologies to map human-directed policies to computer-automated implementations, and technologies to monitor, enforce and verify these policies at the software level
• Data-sharing policy research
  • Informing inter-agency sharing policy efforts
  • Advising policy and technology research with current legal, legislative and social developments.
  • Analyzing and recommending privacy technology development and deployment strategies based on lessons-learned from related efforts.
  • Collaborate with practitioners, industry, government and research professionals engaged in complementary efforts.
• Community Outreach and Input
  o Working with ARJIS agencies and other local law enforcement to determine their data analysis/data sharing needs, obstacles and concerns
  o Implementing prototype technologies and making them accessible to domain-expert evaluators through the BorderSafe secure portal.
  o Providing a forum for interested parties to engage on technology and policy initiatives that advance solutions for sharing and analysis within integrated data systems.