Key Issues
Innovation
Public Warning
Report from ITU/OASIS Workshop
ITU and OASIS held a joint workshop on ICT Standards for Public Warning in Geneva, 19-20th of October 2006.
Preliminary remark: founded in 1993, OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) defines itself as a not-for-profit, “international consortium that drives the development, convergence and adoption of e-business standards.” It produces security and e-business standards for the public sector and for application-specific markets.
Mr Zhao, Director of ITU Standardization Sector
This workshop was build upon the results of the earlier ITU-T WS on Telecommunications for Disaster Relief held in Geneva, 17-19 February 2003. Emphasizing the practical application of standardized public warnings, the workshop also reviews work by Standards development organizations (SDOs).
Framework:
- Tampere Convention on the Provision for Disaster Mitigation and Relief Operations (1998)
- OASIS’s Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) agreed in 2004 as an international standard for all-hazard alert messages
- ITU’s recommendations (June 2006) encouraging the implementation of public warning, enabling all actors to mobilize all resources. These recommendations encourage the use of OASIS standards
Chair: Marie-Thérèse Alajouanine, ARCEP (French telecommunication regulation authority) and Eliot Christian, US Geological Survey
The output of the Workshop is eventually to draft new recommendations. Challenges:
- Identify/authentify senders because false alarms can be expensive and degrade public confidence. Alerting systems can become targets for deliberative misinformation or denial-of-service attacks
- Reduce the cost of developing Internet-based alerting services
- Identify requirements for standardization
- Articulation of valid business cases
- Advocate for royalty-free and RAND licensing terms
Patrick Gannon, President and CEO of OASIS
He introduced the speakers and mentioned the MOU signed between ITU and OASIS.
NB: a Syrian delegate made a spontaneous intervention: ITU-D and ITUR representatives should have attended the meeting!
John Hayes, World Meteorological OrganizationWorld Weather Watch and Public Warning.
Facts: 90% of natural disasters in the last 10 years resulted from hazards (floods, droughts, tropical cyclones, etc.)
The challenge: “Collaborative actions are necessary to assure that standards-based, all-media, all-hazards public warning becomes an essential infrastructure component available to all societies worldwide.” (ISOC)
WMO consists of observing systems, telecommunications facilities of WMO members. If necessary, WMO warns ITU who warns the involved actors:
- Public
- Leadership
- Emergency managers
- Responders (law enforcement, emergency medical services).
WMO directly works with OASIS and ITU. Goals: Early warning and Public warning.
NB: Effective public warning involves many distinct aspects other than ICT including public education, building codes, policy, and social science among others.
Bo Bergner, National Post and Telecom Agency, Sweden,
Developments related to the Tampere Convention.
Presentation of provisions of the Tampere Convention on the Provision for Disaster Mitigation and Relief Operations: adopted in 1998. It came into effect in 2005 after ratification by 50 countries. The Convention constitutes a framework to manage requests for telecommunication assistance. Additionally, it provides model agreements and best practices to convey these requests. Problems to solve:
- Regulatory problem: Being allowed to use the telecommunication equipment
- Finding a way to facilitate solving the operators’ coordination problem
- Facing costs implied by rapid alerts (satellites are the most efficient but tremendously expensive)
Way forward: Lobbying the member States for the implementation of the Convention (adaptation of national legislation, monitoring progress, etc.).
Tony Rutkowski, Verisign
Activities in the private sector as it relates to Public Warning.
Innovating implementations of OASIS CAP are appearing in the US. New US legislation : FCC’s Commercial Mobile Service Alert Advisory Committee + International implications.
Warning and Response Network (WARN) Act, signed the 13th of October 2006: provides for national and international cooperation. FCC consults with NIST (USGOV standards institute). The FCC adopts emergency alerts standards and implements services through commercial providers. Providers must provide a free service. They must offer the possibility to subscribers to not receive the service (except for presidential messages).
Challenges:
- Congestion of networks
- Geographic targeting (e.g. difficult for SMS)
- Support for emergency alert and messaging capabilities in ongoing global NGN standards activities is essential. Substantial funds must be available for R&D projects
Chip Hines, US Department of Homeland Security
Emergency Public Warning is a US e-Government priority: “Disaster Management” (DM) and “SafeCom” projects.
Messaging standards implementation drives data systems to interoperability. Compliant software can exchange and display information in their own native way.
Development of Emergency Data eXchange Language (EXDL).
NIEM: common library of standards, shared with OASIS community.
Example of concrete project: Hospital Available Exchange (HAVE).
Franck Robles and Andrew Rogers, Neopolitan Networks
How CAP alters are supported by the Google Earth Infrastructure.
NB: Neopolitan developed scalable backends systems for Google.
Dissemination of critical public information: emergency managers can use Google Earth to zoom on top of an event making the emergency job much easier.
Critical data distribution raises a number of key infrastructure design challenges:
- Protection of the alter distribution infrastructure from attacks
- Scalable policy enforcement
- Survivability of the infrastructure when needed most
Thomas Peter, UN/OCHA
Global Disaster Alert and Coordination System (GDACs).
GDAC = Reliable alert notification after sudden onset disaster + Facilitator of international coordination.
Tools: Networks (e.g. Focal Points) + Standards + Web-platform.
GDAC’s stakeholders: affected countries, donor countries and organizations, scientific institutions and international organizations (Red Cross, ITU, UNOSAT, WHO, DPKO, UNICEF, HCR, etc.)
Way forward: Encourage adoption of CAP + emphasize on national and local stand-by capacities (e.g. radio amateurs).
Peter Koltermann, UNESCO
Efforts toward a Global Tsunami Warning System.
Observing systems are dormant but efficient.
The Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) coordinates Tsunami Warning Systems globally as an end-to-end system.
IOC’s mandate is to be there before marine disasters strike. It coordinates 28 member countries. Directly works with national seismic and sea level networks.
Challenges: Info systems still get systematically clogged in 2006 (Tonga earthquake, Merapi Volcano, Java tsunami) + Need for clear responsibilities at all levels of the process.
Update on draft recommendations for the Common alerting protocol (CAP) such as the improvement of multilingual alerting standards. It was also suggested that networks should endeavor greater interoperability; e.g. signatory States and non signatory States of the Tampere Convention should agree to enhance their networks’ interoperability.
Joint ITU-T/ OASIS Workshop and Demonstration of Advances in ICT Standards for Public Warning (PDF: 27KB)
