Eurovision – the international song competition organized by the European Broadcasting Union – is one of the most watched and revered song competitions in the world. Founded in 1956, Eurovision helped launch the career of music icons like ABBA and Celine Dion. Each year, the event draws millions of viewers from over 45 countries and a live audience for the semifinals and finals.
In 2021, Eurovision was held at the Rotterdam Ahoy arena in the Netherlands. As it came during the COVID-19 pandemic, the live audience was held to just 20% of the arena’s capacity, but still such a high-profile and global event brings with it an increased risk of terrorism.
To prepare, the Dutch National Police equipped around 51,000 officers with DragonForce, a command and control software originally developed for the U.S. Army to streamline communication and collaboration. Some iteration of DragonForce has been used for over 20 years by law enforcement agencies around the world to make their teams more responsive to any situation they may encounter – from street patrols to stealthy, small-scale jobs to large-scale events, VIP protection and emergency management.
Today, DragonForce has all the ease of use and collaborative capabilities of today’s most advanced collaboration software, but with secure connections needed for law enforcement.
DragonForce has been playing a role in the public safety domain since long before smartphones and 4G became ubiquitous, making it a tested and trusted solution for the Dutch National Police to employ to make sure police officers from multiple units could collaborate on security for Eurovision participants and the public.
BENEFITS FOR COMPLEX, LARGE-SCALE OPERATIONS
One benefit for such a large deployment is that DragonForce is quick and easy to integrate into operations. The mobile app version is downloadable from app stores and DragonForce Command Center offers a command post view in a web browser.
Creating groups is as easy as dragging and dropping names onto a list. Command staff can prebuild and customize groups according to criteria like location or operational discipline. Groups can also be created on the fly, in the field, by simply distributing QR codes to teammates who in turn can scan them. That will automatically download and provision DragonForce on their mobile device. “They basically go from strangers to trusted secure partners literally in 60 seconds,” said James Sim, chief executive officer of Drakontas, the company that developed DragonForce. “There’s no special equipment that the customer needs other than the gear they already have. They can download and install DragonForce and be taking advantage of the complete toolkit in a matter of minutes.”
Another benefit is that DragonForce integrates multiple features like personnel tracking, tactical whiteboarding and secure messaging into one platform that enhances situational awareness.
Real-time tracking allows command staff to track personnel and vehicles on a map and then annotate and add icons or shapes onto a shared map to identify suspect locations, create hot zones and more. This collaborative whiteboarding capability allows command staff to build and customize a common operating picture using any map or floorplan, ensuring the team has the latest and most accurate mission-critical information at their fingertips. Users can also stream video directly from their mobile devices to group members for added situational awareness and safety.
DragonForce also provides secure and private text messaging, push-to-talk voice communications and image and file sharing providing a purpose built, public safety grade alternative to the, publicly available WhatsApp messaging app law enforcement officers sometimes resort to for similar group and individual conversations. As with all DragonForce data, messages are encrypted in transit and at rest.
The platform also has a powerful back-end system that makes it easy to collect, store, organize, export and share data, images, maps and whiteboards and create incident and after-action reports.
DRAGONFORCE IN ACTION
Paul De Ruiter is the main knowledge instructor for DragonForce for the Dutch National Police and was in the team deployed around Eurovision. Multiple agencies were involved, including the Explosives Reconnaissance Team (TEV), the Royal and Diplomatic Security Service and the Special Interventions Service.
During the event, a suspicious abandoned backpack was found near the arena. A photo was taken of it and shared in DragonForce so the bomb crew could immediately assess the threat level without having to first circulate it through a colleague in the real-time crime center. “The file exchange runs via secure servers,” said Rob Zandbergen, chief officer of service at Operations of the National Unit. “So it doesn’t end up in a cloud where we don’t have control over the security, as is the case with WhatsApp.”
The geotag on the photo allowed it to be immediately visible on a map to all members of the group, so command staff could make decisions about who was allowed near the location until the threat was evaluated and discharged.
BENEFITS FOR PATROL OPERATIONS
While DragonForce helped the Dutch National Police keep Eurovision safe, it’s equally useful in day-to-day patrol operations.
In one case, a man threatened to kill his wife and newborn child. Using DragonForce, De Ruiter created a group and shared a photo of the suspect, a friend of the suspect, a map of the suspect’s residence and a picture of the suspect’s car. Within moments, the entire group knew the situation and whom to be on the lookout for. “If I have to update someone from scratch about the case, then I know that such a person with DragonForce has a much better picture than if he is only informed verbally,” said de Ruiter.
The map capability also was instrumental in finding a child missing in Zuiderpark, the largest natural recreational park in the Netherlands. De Ruiter used DragonForce to map out a grid for systematic searching across an area approximately the size of 430 football fields and encompassing terrain that includes wooded forests, bodies of water and swamps. “I then link everyone who is working on that loss to the project in DragonForce. Creating a search grid is simply a function in the system,” said de Ruiter. “You can even follow the police officers involved on the map. Dotted lines indicate where someone has been. Then you can easily check who has been where and where has not yet been searched.”
DragonForce is an invaluable tool that enables law enforcement agencies to transform the smartphones, tablets and computer browsers they already use into a secure, mission-critical team collaboration platform.
“We view our customers as professional decisionmakers, and DragonForce is the connective tissue that brings people and data elements together as quickly and effectively as possible,” said Sim. “We’re not telling them what to do or how to do it, but we are taking communication friction away from them so that whatever their job is that they need to do, they can go about it securely, more quickly and more safely.”
For more information, visit Drakontas.
