Post-Hearing Question From the May 8, 2003, Hearing on Barriers to Information Sharing at the Department of Homeland Security
Gao ID: GAO-03-985R July 7, 2003
This letter provides GAO's response for the record to the question posed by Congress concerning whether GAO believes that the Department of Homeland Security should consolidate databases in order to enable the correlation of relationships in that data that can point to developing threats.
Standardizing and consolidating stovepiped databases can offer significant benefits. In particular, it can help reduce or eliminate duplicative data capture and storage and enable faster data access and better data consistency, which can reduce costs as well as improve data reliability and sharing. Analyzing these benefits in relation to associated costs and risks, such as security and privacy, provides a basis for informed decisions about not only consolidation but also the appropriate level of consolidation. Effective development of enterprise architectures provides for performing such analysis. In the case of federal watch lists, we identified indicators (such as the number and variability of the lists and the commonality of their purposes) of opportunities to consolidate and standardize. Consequently, we recommended that the Department of Homeland Security determine the extent of watch list consolidation needed to accomplish its mission and that such consolidation be done as part of the department's efforts to develop an enterprise architecture.
GAO-03-985R, Post-Hearing Question From the May 8, 2003, Hearing on Barriers to Information Sharing at the Department of Homeland Security
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July 7, 2003:
The Honorable Tom Davis:
Chairman, Committee on Government Reform:
House of Representatives:
Subject: Post-hearing Question From the May 8, 2003, Hearing on
Barriers to Information Sharing at the Department of Homeland
Security:
Dear Mr. Chairman:
As requested, this letter provides our response for the record to the
question posed by Representative Michael Turner to GAO, in your letter
of June 13, 2003.
The GAO recently released a report on the sharing of terrorist watch
lists between federal, state, and local agencies (GAO-03-322).[Footnote
1] The report discussed the importance of an enterprise architecture
that served all agencies' needs. The report went on to discuss the role
of database architectures as an integral component of the overall
enterprise architecture. Specifically, the report pointed out the
problems encountered unless data is consolidated as opposed to relying
on decentralized databases. The report recommends that the agencies
move to consolidate these watch lists.
While your report is specific to terrorist watch lists, I am interested
in whether you believe that the Department of Homeland Security should
also be consolidating other "stovepiped" databases in order to enable
the correlation of relationships in that data that can point to
developing threats. Can you comment on this?
Standardizing and consolidating stovepiped databases can offer
significant benefits. In particular, it can help reduce or eliminate
duplicative data capture and storage and enable faster data access and
better data consistency, which can reduce costs as well as improve data
reliability and sharing. Analyzing these benefits in relation to
associated costs and risks, such as security and privacy, provides a
basis for informed decisions about not only consolidation but also the
appropriate level of consolidation. Effective development of enterprise
architectures provides for performing such analysis.
In the case of federal watch lists, we identified indicators (such as
the number and variability of the lists and the commonality of their
purposes) of opportunities to consolidate and standardize.
Consequently, we recommended that the Department of Homeland Security
determine the extent of watch list consolidation needed to accomplish
its mission and that such consolidation be done as part of the
department's efforts to develop an enterprise architecture.
We believe this approach--analyzing information and data needs and
solutions within the context of an enterprise architecture--is also
necessary to determine the extent to which all existing systems of the
department's 22 component agencies should be standardized and
consolidated. In fact, during the subject hearing, the department's
chief information officer testified that it plans to develop and use an
enterprise architecture to guide its systems consolidation and
integration. He stated that the department plans to issue the
enterprise architecture by the fall of 2003.
If you have any questions concerning this information, please contact
me at (202) 512-3439 or hiter@gao.gov, or Gary Mountjoy, Assistant
Director, at (202) 512-6367 or mountjoyg@gao.gov.
Sincerely yours,
Randolph C. Hite:
Director, Information Technology Architecture and Systems Issues:
Signed by Randolph C. Hite:
(310264):
FOOTNOTES
[1] U.S. General Accounting Office, Information Technology: Terrorist
Watch Lists Should Be Consolidated to Promote Better Integration and
Sharing, GAO-03-322 (Washington, D.C.: April 15, 2003).
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