Discovering GEOINT Across the DHS Enterprise

A framework for knowledge sharing helps DHS make more, better use of GEOINT

David-Lilley_1

Next to warfighting and intelligence gathering abroad, it’s hard to imagine a more apt use for geospatial intelligence than crime fighting here at home. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is therefore a voracious user of GEOINT, according to David Lilley Jr., acting GIO and acting director of the DHS Geospatial Management Office.

There’s just one problem: Not all employees across the DHS enterprise realize what GEOINT services exist, how to access them, or in what ways to leverage and share them.

During a presentation Monday on the Government Pavilion Stage at GEOINT 2017, Lilley explained how his office is solving that problem by evangelizing, activating, and otherwise enabling GEOINT throughout DHS, which comprises more than one million people across a range of mission sets, including asset management, special events security, border patrol screening and vetting, law enforcement, and cybersecurity.

“We’ve got the opportunity to identify a lot of different organizations, data sets, capabilities and available tradecraft,” Lilley said, “And what we’ve tried to do is use an adaptive approach to making sure the community can reuse those capabilities.”

To that end, DHS has compiled a geospatial body of knowledge known as the Homeland Security Geospatial Concept of Operations (GeoCONOPS), a tour of which Lilley offered during his presentation.

We’ve got the opportunity to identify a lot of different organizations, data sets, capabilities and available tradecraft.” —David Lilley Jr., Acting GIO and Acting Director of the DHS Geospatial Management Office

“This concept of operations is helping us leverage existing capabilities and deliver those capabilities to mission owners,” explained Lilley, adding GeoCONOPS documents who at the federal, state, and local level is using GEOINT, as well as what data and training resources are available to help users deploy GEOINT more effectively.

“We’ve bundled all that into [GeoCONOPS] to help the community identify, reuse, and repurpose what’s available, and focus limited resources on true gaps that we have instead of repeating [efforts].”

The end goal for all stakeholders: increased security and savings.

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