Mystery Risks
James Madison University, Fall 2023
Problem Statement
The Countermeasures Program Division (CMP), headquarters, and regional security teams needs to, in real-time, identify the changing environment or forensic variables in embassies to help predict security risks in order to more quickly gather environmental data and potentially save lives.
Problem Scoping and Discovery
The team conducted 71 discovery interviews and gained the following insights:
Unconventional risks to Embassies can be separated into 3 threat categories: Radioactive, Chemical, and Biological. Detection mechanisms vary greatly for each threat category.
Personnel vitals (i.e. body temperature, heart rate) may be a proxy for detecting biological threats, but symptomatic indicators typically show only after it is too late to prevent any adverse impact of the threat – Embassies must be able to detect these threats before they cause harm or significant changes in vitals.
Commercial technologies may pose a security risk; false positives, personal identifiable information, and secure data management are key for DOS to move forward with any new technology.
Solution Proposed
Their proposed solution is a layered system of wearable devices that monitor for various health risks. They proposed a suite of commercially available devices that could interact together to create an overlapping network of health checks so that when a threat is detected, appropriate measures can be taken promptly.
Results
The sponsor plans on sharing the students’ research findings with the Diplomatic Security Command Center to review how the students recommendations can be used in conjunction with the Personnel Tracking Locator (PTL) system.