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Migration and Home Affairs
News article15 November 2022Directorate-General for Migration and Home Affairs

CERIS INFRA event: Secure Communication Systems

Director Marta Cygan for Innovation and Audit at DG HOME, European Commission speaking at podium for CERIS event
Director Marta Cygan

On 15 November 2022, the European Commission held a CERIS event in Brussels in which participants discussed how to develop an EU-wide critical secure communication system for law enforcement, emergency and rescue services.

The objective of the event was to take stock of the progress made in dedicated EU security research projects, such as BroadWay, ISITEP, Driver+ and RESISTO, as well as among the Nordic Member States, and to discuss the way forward.

The conference was opened by Director Marta Cygan, who underlined the need for such an EU-wide system:

“One of the key challenges that we are facing is that law enforcement and public safety authorities are operating still without any ‘operational mobility’ capability, allowing them to operate and to communicate across the European Union in a secured way.”

Director Marta Cygan speaking at CERIS event to participants sitting around tables

Developing such an EU-wide capability would also increase the EU’s strategic autonomy and make it more resilient to crisis situations. In this context, DG HOME presented the initial outcomes of the deep-dive on “secured communication systems” that are mapping existing technological solutions in the EU.

The main research project for developing an EU-wide secured communication system is the H2020 project BroadWay. In cooperation with law enforcement, emergency and rescue services from different Member States, BroadWay developed technological solutions allowing these authorities to use their own national devices to communicate and exchange data in any other Member State for cross-border and multi-national missions, in real time and 24/7.

Other projects presented were ISITEP, a project for Inter-System interoperability for Tetra-TetraPol networks; the Driver+ project that created different tools for crisis management stakeholders; and RESISTO, a project on improving the resilience of critical communication infrastructures against a wide variety of threats. The final presentation was an example of Nordic (Norway, Sweden and Finland) cooperation in emergency response situations through already established cross-border secure communications.

Details

Publication date
15 November 2022
Author
Directorate-General for Migration and Home Affairs