West Yorkshire Police secures operations with identity management technology

West Yorkshire Police has implemented identity and access management technology to improve security across its operations. The smartcard identity and access management solution, which fully complies with the National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) and Siemens Enterprise Communications framework guidelines, aims to use technology to integrate a number of business processes to provide police officers and police staff with access to reference data such as the Police National Database (PND), access to facilities and computer systems as well as vehicular access and the potential for further systems integration in the future.

The security framework, being implemented by Sysec, will provide identification, authentication and authorisation services for 10,000 users with a full audit trail for all system accesses.

Neil Guy, identity and access project manager at West Yorkshire Police, said: “Our identity and access management solution provides a single secure method for our personnel to access buildings, computer systems and national reference data for more effective policing.

“We engaged Sysec, under the terms of the NPIA/ Siemens framework, to implement the public key infrastructure (PKI) because of its focus on security and expertise in identity and access management solutions. Sysec’s ability to tailor the solution to meet the specific identity and access management requirements of the force proved invaluable.”

The solution improves the efficiency and effectiveness of the force’s operations by enabling secure authentication for individuals accessing police computer systems. This eases the transition to role-based access control (RBAC), which will help to regulate who accesses systems in relation to their role and responsibilities. The use of the new technologies in relation to remote access and self-service temporary card issuance, will also aid the time available for frontline policing.

Paul Whiteley, director of IS for West Yorkshire Police, explained: “Today, there is a growing demand to make information more widely available across all forces. This need has been highlighted by programmes such as IMPACT (Intelligence Management, Prioritisation, Analysis, Coordination and Tasking). With increased access to data sources it is important to determine that people have the right to access the information and also to track what is done with it. Forces must be satisfied that the people making requests for information are who they say they are and that they have a legitimate business need to access the information. The infrastructure for identity and access management, including the new smartcards, business processes and governance will help us achieve this.”

Andy Bryars, security consultant for Sysec, said the solution will ensure the integrity of the security for both physical access to facilities and logical access to computer systems in the office, via the web and when on duty.

“This provides West Yorkshire Police with a highly-flexible solution for access to facilities and systems and improves productivity by enabling better, technology-enabled policing,” he added.
Sysec is working closely with West Yorkshire Police to deliver secure and flexible access to police premises and systems and providing guidance on how to evolve the identity and access management project to encompass additional business processes to improve efficiency and to deliver further cost savings and benefits.

The identity access management framework was made available to police forces in April 2009. 
The centrally-managed electronic sign-on system, which enables authorised officers and staff to access police databases securely using one unique password or smartcard and pin, is estimated to save each police on average £150,000. The cumulative savings are expected to be in excess of £6 million.

It is one of the first projects delivered under the NPIA’s Information Systems Improvement Strategy (ISIS) which aims to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of infor