Swan Island Networks News

Swan Island Networks Provides 360-Degree-Threat Picture for Super Bowl Security Stakeholders

Swan Island and Digital Sandbox Team Up to Provide Real-Time Situational Awareness, Vulnerability Assessments for Super Bowl

PORTLAND, OR, February 9, 2009—Super Bowl XLIII, February 1 2009, drew thousands of fans to Tampa, Florida, beginning a week in advance. Hotels were packed; 10,000 cars were rented; airlines added thousands of seats. On game day, nearly 70,000 people were in the stands, while thousands more gathered in other locations in the city to cheer on their favorite team and athletes.

Behind the scenes, well-trained safety and security experts executed carefully laid plans to prevent disruptions ranging from weather events to acts of terrorism, and to protect people, property and information. The Tampa Police Department worked with state and local organizations, and federal agencies including Customs and Border Protection and the FBI, to share information and coordinate actions for event and patron safety and security.

All these various stakeholders were able to share sensitive information with each other in a trusted online community via Swan Island Networks’ TIES®, a highly secure, scalable Web 2.0 information sharing service. TIES provided a geospatially based common operating picture created by integrating hundreds of feeds from private and open sources; these were mashed up to create a rich context for new information, then displayed in a series of easy-to-use dashboards accessed with a web browser. Data included camera feeds of key event facilities, traffic cams, 9-1-1 alerts, public safety notifications, severe weather data, additional automated data, and live alerts published on-site in real time by authorized professionals. For the Tampa community of trust, TIES was integrated with critical venue-specific risk analysis and vulnerability assessments provided by the Risk Analysis Center (RAC) from Digital Sandbox, a leading provider of dynamic risk-management software and analysis solutions for homeland security.

When asked how the TIES/Digital Sandbox integration aided risk management, Major John Bennett of the Tampa Police Department, Incident Commander for Super Bowl XLIII, explained, “The key to managing security during a massive event is ensuring a collective understanding of our risks, and coordinating the scores of agencies involved in mitigating these risks.”

Digital Sandbox has a long-standing partnership with the Tampa police department; this was TIES’ first year to provide Super Bowl security. “TIES was extremely valuable for quickly assembling a wide array of sources into a single management dashboard,” said Anthony Beverina, Digital Sandbox president and co-founder. “Integrated with the RAC’s critical venue-specific risk analysis and vulnerability assessments, the system allowed public safety officials to maintain visibility of every emerging risk scenario and, when necessary, drill down instantly for detailed asset, risk, and capability details.”

“Speed, agility and ready access to real-time information sources are critical to managing major events,” said Charles Jennings, Founder/CEO of Swan Island Networks. “With TIES at the Super Bowl, a broad coalition of federal, state, local, and private stakeholders was kept informed of events and changing conditions. The vulnerability data provided by Digital Sandbox added a powerful complement to the common operating picture and situational analysis TIES delivers.”

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