National Information Exchange Model (NIEM)

Program Update

January 11, 2007

Thomas O’Reilly

NIEM Program Management

Office

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Agenda

• Provide an update on NIEM activities and accomplishments since September 1st

• Provide insight into NIEM’s strategic direction over the next several months

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Information Sharing is a National Imperative

Detecting, preventing, responding to and investigating crimes, disasters and terrorist acts requires the exchange of information among multiple engaged agencies.

Exchanges must be timely and accurate and therefore highly automated.

Most existing computer systems are not designed to facilitate information sharing across disciplines and jurisdictions.

Automated information sharing between agencies requires the definition of common standards for linking disparate systems.

Local, state, tribal, and federal agencies need to adopt common information sharing standards to facilitate information sharing

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NIEM IS:

• A data standard for enabling information exchanges across multiple communities of interest, using agreed-upon terms, definitions, and formats independent of the way data is stored in individual systems.

• A way to achieve consensus on the content of specific exchanges

• A structured and disciplined approach to data interoperability

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The Historical Perspective

• NIEM was launched on February 28, 2005, through a partnership agreement between the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS)

• NIEM was initially populated by the work from the highly successful Global Justice XML Data Model, including data elements, structure, and the governance model

• NIEM was expanded in its first release by additional communities of interest including the intelligence community, disaster management, infrastructure protection, and international trade

• The Program Manager of the Information Sharing Environment fostered the further national emphasis on the use of NIEM in support of counter-terrorism initiatives

• Pilot projects in DOJ and DHS have tested the utility of the initial release of NIEM, and efforts are underway to create pilot projects in state and local governments

• The production release of NIEM 1.0 is now available at www.niem.gov

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Participating Communities

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Goals and Objectives

• Deliver NIEM – NIEM 1.0 (Delivered October 2006)– Currently working on NIEM Harmony Release (Target Beta April 2007)– Ramp-up governance, communications, and outreach activities (Underway)

• Catalyze NIEM adoption and usage with stakeholders– Migration of GJXDM installed base (Underway, most are waiting on Harmony Release)– DOJ, DHS EA – NIEM is the standard for information exchange (Done – Standard

development underway)– DOJ, DHS Grants – use of NIEM is a special condition (Done)

• Enable delivery of Counter-Terrorism Information Sharing Standards (Underway)

• Deepen partnerships with communities of interest– Update and extend MOU to include DNI and Global Justice (Underway)– NIEM in the Federal Transition Framework (Underway)

• Become the standard, by choice, for government information exchange

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The Information Sharing Environment (ISE)

ISE Goals

• Facilitate the establishment of a trusted partnership between all levels of government, the private sector, and foreign partners

• Promote an information sharing culture among ISE partners by facilitating the creation of and improved sharing of timely, validated, protected, and actionable information, and supported by extensive education, training, and awareness programs for ISE users

• Function in a decentralized, distributed, and coordinated manner, utilizing a time-honored federalized approach to maximize cooperation of Federal, State, local, tribal, and private sector entities

• Develop and deploy incrementally, leveraging existing information sharing capabilities while also creating new core functions and services

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NIEM Organizational Structure

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NIEM Governance Structure

NIEM Committees:

• NIEM Program Director and Executive Director, Kshemendra Paul

• NIEM Business and Outreach Director, Tom O’Reilly

• Executive Steering Committee (ESC) consists of representatives from DOJ, DHS, ODNI and Global

• Policy Advisory Panel is being formed

• NIEM Business Architecture Committee (NBAC) chaired by Paul Embley

• NIEM Technical Architecture Committee (NTAC) chaired by Jeremy Warren and Thomas Clarke

• National Priority Exchange Panel (NPEP) chaired by Chip Hines

• NIEM Communications and Outreach Committee (NC&OC) chaired by Paul Wormeli

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NBAC Update and Planned ActivitiesAccomplishments and Update:• Kickoff meeting held Oct 24-26, 2006 in Denver, Colorado

– Reviewed and provided input on ConOps– Examined harmonization process– Elaborated domain engagement and lifecycle

• Joint meeting with the NTAC Crystal City, Dec 4th – 6th

– Discussed external standards requirements, independent versioning, code table requirements, migration strategy/tools, the harmonization process and other technical architecture issues

• Developed charter• Harmonization is in progress

Future Actions:• Harmonization Workshop I: January 30–February 1, 2007, Atlanta, GA • Harmonization Workshop II: March 6–8, 2007, Atlanta, GA • Approve Charter

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NTAC Update and Planned Activities

Accomplishments and update:• Kickoff meeting held on November 3rd in Washington, DC

– Discussed the purpose, responsibilities, etc., of the NTAC, – Determined NTAC, NBAC and XSTF requirements for the Harmony release – Prioritized technical issues in NIEM Configuration and Control Tool (NCCT)– Decided not to collapse the Universal/Common domains

• Joint NBAC meeting, Crystal City, Dec 4th – 6th

– Determined external standards requirements, independent versioning and code table requirements

– Discussed migration strategy/tools and the harmonization process

• The committee consists of 12 members with technical expertise from DHS, DOJ, DNI, GTRI and industry

Future Actions:

• Reconvene in January • Vet and review requirements papers

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NPEP Update and Planned Activities

Accomplishments and Update: • Working closely with the PM-ISE, the initial focus is on counter-terrorism

exchanges including:  a) incident reporting, b) people screening, c) suspicious incident reporting (SIR), d) cargo screening, e) emergency and disaster management, and f) case management

• Developing the SIR national priority exchange through the PM-ISE

• First meeting held on December 11th with representatives from the people screening, SIR, cargo screening and emergency and disaster management IEPD development teams

• Developed a draft charter and an IEPD status template to document IEPD development efforts

• Met with 24 state and local representatives to develop NIEM pilot opportunities

Future Actions:• Finalize the charter and complete the IEPD status template in January

• Meet in January with the incident reporting and case management teams

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NC&OC Update and Planned Activities

Accomplishments and update:• Kickoff meeting held on November 16th and 17th • The committee consists of 17 members from various state, local and

federal organizations • Finalized charter, assigned action item track leads, vetted marketing

materials, developed the help desk and training assistance and coordination

• Developed several executive and technical briefings and press releases• Wrote and vetted several papers including Why NIEM?, Why NIEM

Now?, and NIEM Business Value

Future Actions:• Develop a Management Plan (tentatively scheduled for February 1st-2nd) • Deliver consistent and effective information regarding NIEM through

presentation materials, press releases, and outreach• Develop the NIEM User Guide

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Tools and Support Services

• Training and Technical Assistance– NIEM website

– Training materials

– Help desk

– National and regional training

• Tools– Component Mapping Template

– Schema Subset Generation

– Graphical Browser

– IEPD Clearinghouse

• Documentation• Introduction to NIEM• Concept of Operations• User Guide• Naming and Design Rules

• Standards• NEIM 1.0 • IEPD requirements specs

All available through

www.niem.gov

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NIEM Training

NIEM Practical Implementer’s Course: Ashburn, VA, November 29th-December 1st

76 Total Registered Attendees:

• 35 Vendors (including 25 different companies)

• 23 from Federal Agencies, representing DOJ, FBI, ODNI, DHS, USPS, US Coast Guard, TSA, and US-VISIT

• 12 from State Agencies, representing the Pennsylvania Justice Network, the Arkansas Crime Information Center, Maryland Judiciary Dep. of Family Administration, Michigan State Police, Maricopa County (Arizona), LA County Sheriff’s Office

• Six from Partner Agencies, including IJIS Institute, Research Triangle Institute, University of Memphis, NASCIO and the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators

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NIEM Training

NIEM Executive Briefing: Ashburn, VA, November 29th-December 1st

67 Total Registered Attendees

• 17 Vendors

• 36 from Federal Agencies, representing DOJ, FBI, ODNI, DHS, US Coast Guard, TSA, BJA, NCTC, CBP, ICE, USMS, DISA/DOD, Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency and the Administrative Office of US Courts

• Six from State Agencies, representing the Fairfax (VA) County Police Department, Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia, the District of Columbia Government and the DC Metro Police Department

• Eight from Partner Agencies, including IJIS Institute, Research Triangle Institute, University of Memphis, NASCIO and Georgia State University

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• Implement exchanges based on NIEM by participating communities of interest involving local, state, tribal and Federal agencies and organizations

• Use NIEM to create national priority exchanges for suspicious activity reporting, person and cargo screening, disaster management and other critical areas of national significance

• Expand the participating communities of interest to include health care, transportation, education and others, creating parallel governance structures to include representation in the expansion of the data model

• Further endorsement by local, state, tribal and Federal agencies

• Expand training and technical assistance efforts to help participants implement NIEM-based exchanges

• An MOU to formally expand NIEM to ODNI was drafted and is being reviewed by ODNI

• The ESC and the Policy Advisory Panel will meet early next year

The Future of NIEM

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Future Releases

The Harmony release will have several improvements over 1.0:• Principles, guidelines and mechanisms for technical harmonization• Version independence• Some migration tool support• Structural improvements (more associations, less inheritance)• Migrate GJXDM to NIEM

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Conclusion

• For more information visit the NIEM web site (http://www.niem.gov)

• Contact NIEM by email at information@niem.gov

Questions and Discussion