The AFP enhances its ICT capabilities

The Australian Federal Police (AFP) has announced the launch in a new ‘Innovation Centre’ aimed at trialling the latest in ICT to help the organisation better tackle crime.

According to the AFP, the Innovation Centre will focus on the identification, trial and application of new and emerging technologies in support of current and future operations and business needs.

Rudi Lammers, chief information officer at the AFP told CIO Australia that the centre has been designed to be adaptable to enable future changes and upgrades and to be “able to convert system inputs up to a single format by using compact and inexpensive interfaces”.

The centre will have a particular focus on virtualisation, which Lammers said allows the AFP to maintain a more flexible and agile ICT environment.

“The centre is an unclassified, internet connected environment that is accessible after authentication. The ICT environment is designed as a cloud that enables industry to install and demonstrate their capabilities and their applicability to law enforcement within the AFP,” Lammers said.

“If a technology is not suitable to be deployed in a virtual environment the innovation centre also caters for physical installations. In addition, spare capacity is available for systems that have unique requirements, [for example] appliance products.”

The centre has also been designed to cater for several different operating systems and devices.

Technology and systems undergoing trial at the centre could include a geographically dispersed virtual ‘tiger team’, which can be established to determine the value of a system for a specific law enforcement function, according to Lammers. Other products currently undergoing testing include end-to-end, enterprise ready, solutions that allow AFP officers to access information in critical services and return time sensitive information in a secure environment.

“We have no view on the number of demonstrations we will conduct,” Lammers said. “This will be driven by the needs of the business and the ability of the ICT industry to support the AFP.”

Products and technology from Australia and overseas will be considered.

“As the environment is unclassified any technologies that the AFP considers to be of value can be demonstrated,” he said.

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