ChoicePoint® Technology Helps Department of Homeland Security

ChoicePoint (NYSE: CPS) technologies played a key role in a recent multi-jurisdictional demonstration of first responder capabilities that simulated high-casualty events in nine U.S. cities. The demonstration was conducted by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its Office of National Capital Region Coordination (ONCRC). The day-long effort, named Winter Storm, was designed to test public safety and law enforcement officials’ ability to effectively communicate across departmental and jurisdictional boundaries immediately following a significant man-made or natural disaster.

ChoicePoint’s medical credentialing solution provided DHS and ONCRC with the ability to verify the identity and professional credentials of the emergency service personnel participating in the exercise. Additionally, ChoicePoint’s unique mapping capabilities afforded DHS and other senior government officials with real-time situational awareness of personnel checking in or out of the “disaster” sites. These capabilities, used across the country for the first time in this demonstration, were recognized by DHS and ONCRC as being unprecedented as the United States prepares for future disasters.

“ChoicePoint was the only mapping technology vendor to receive an invitation from the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of National Capital Region Coordination for this demonstration,” said Todd Drake, ChoicePoint vice president of sales. “We appreciate our relationship with the DHS and ONCRC and are proud that our mapping technology could serve as a helpful tool in enhancing the communication capabilities of our country’s first responders.”

ChoicePoint’s mapping technology is a geo-spatial analysis tool that enables government agencies to create maps and reports by accessing and merging various information sets. For disaster planning and response, ChoicePoint helps provide situational awareness and a common operating picture of the disaster scene. Emergency managers can quickly isolate an area of concern where an event has taken place or is unfolding. Critical facilities and infrastructure can be identified as either being at risk or as a resource in response to the event. The ChoicePoint technology provides the following key capabilities to incident command and disaster response personnel:

o Assists with interoperable identity.
o Allows information sharing across geographic regions.
o Provides for situational awareness that allows incident command to:
+ locate their equipment;
+ determine where they can house evacuees;
+ provide knowledge of road closures;
+ provide an overview of critical infrastructure in the area;
o Allows the federal, state and local First Responder communities to create emergency disaster scenarios for table top and real exercises.


Armed with visual data that details infrastructure, terrain and available support resources, emergency managers can incorporate this information into their decision-making process and share it with other emergency managers and responders in either report or map format.

In addition, ChoicePoint provided real-time confirmation of qualifications and skills for medical personnel, using key information such as name, medical license number, state of licensure, area of specialty or practice, hospital affiliations and sanctions.