Securing Emergency Response Operations Using Distributed Trust Decisions

Providing access to relevant confidential information during an emergency increases the efficiency of emergency response operations. Existing approaches rely on a centralized on-line authority to regulate access to emergency applications and data. Unfortunately, it cannot be guaranteed that the central authority is available during an incident. Additionally, the central authority must be trusted to manage access to restricted data of each participating organization. Using a physical security token for decentralized trust decisions to gain transient access to emergency applications and data mitigates these problems. Therefore, we propose the Attestation Verification Device (AVD) combined with a proper administration infrastructure and suitable protocols. Our solution allows to distribute the administration responsibility in a way which empowers all participating emergency services and organizations to manage their own applications and confidential data.