Geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) will continue to remain at the “heart” of military operations in the future operational environment, UK director of Cyber Intelligence and Information Integration (DCI3) has asserted.
Addressing the DGI conference in London on 20 January, Air Vice Marshall Jon Rigby underpinned the importance of gathering analytical information while also denying any advantage to adversaries before echoing calls from industry for a “single GEOINT space vision.”
Describing a desire for a “federated service orientated, secure and fused GEOINT network-enabled enterprise, Rigby called for a unity of command and leadership; effort and structure; coordination and authority. Within the ‘Five Eyes’ and NATO, GEOINT has been recognised as the exemplar as to how we collaborate and shows how important it is for us to retain that momentum. Allied coordination continues to improve with tangible operational benefits. and we got it really squared away in last two years of Afghanistan,” he added while referring to NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) operations.
“It is important to us that this is carried forward because if there is a coalition aircraft capable of collecting information, we need to use it. Five Eyes coordination centre at RAF Wyton is one of the most significant things we achieved last year and looking forward for GEOINT, is one of the leading elements that will make this collaboration happen,” Rigby said.
However, looking five years into the future of GEOINT, he encouraged the sharing and integration of products which would avoid an “unsatisfactory” lack of knowledge: “Analysts spend time getting data ready rather than analysing it but with a single data base and agenda, we can push nationally across defence departments and intelligence organisations, providing a skeleton whereupon we can build other stuff. By 2018/19, GEOINT will be ahead of the game,” he urged.
Finally, Rigby announced how industry could soon be outsourced by governments to do elements of GEOINT capabilities, although he stressed that defence departments would not want to lose control over the interpretation of gathered data.
“GEOINT is too massive to do otherwise and when it comes to the initial triage and filtration [of data], industry is helping us to write some of the scripts that do that.”
Addressing the DGI conference in London on 20 January, Air Vice Marshall Jon Rigby underpinned the importance of gathering analytical information while also denying any advantage to adversaries before echoing calls from industry for a “single GEOINT space vision.”
Describing a desire for a “federated service orientated, secure and fused GEOINT network-enabled enterprise, Rigby called for a unity of command and leadership; effort and structure; coordination and authority. Within the ‘Five Eyes’ and NATO, GEOINT has been recognised as the exemplar as to how we collaborate and shows how important it is for us to retain that momentum. Allied coordination continues to improve with tangible operational benefits. and we got it really squared away in last two years of Afghanistan,” he added while referring to NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) operations.
“It is important to us that this is carried forward because if there is a coalition aircraft capable of collecting information, we need to use it. Five Eyes coordination centre at RAF Wyton is one of the most significant things we achieved last year and looking forward for GEOINT, is one of the leading elements that will make this collaboration happen,” Rigby said.
However, looking five years into the future of GEOINT, he encouraged the sharing and integration of products which would avoid an “unsatisfactory” lack of knowledge: “Analysts spend time getting data ready rather than analysing it but with a single data base and agenda, we can push nationally across defence departments and intelligence organisations, providing a skeleton whereupon we can build other stuff. By 2018/19, GEOINT will be ahead of the game,” he urged.
Finally, Rigby announced how industry could soon be outsourced by governments to do elements of GEOINT capabilities, although he stressed that defence departments would not want to lose control over the interpretation of gathered data.
“GEOINT is too massive to do otherwise and when it comes to the initial triage and filtration [of data], industry is helping us to write some of the scripts that do that.”
Andrew White