SAFETY Act and Sports Teams – Using Twitter as an event scanner

A recent Boston Herald article reported that Major League Baseball (MLB) has asked all clubs to obtain Support Anti-Terrorism by Fostering Effective Technologies (SAFETY) Act certification from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

In this post we’ll talk about the SAFETY Act and how Twitter can be leveraged with a tool to help sports venues to meet SAFETY Act standards.

SAFETY Act 101

The SAFETY Act of 2002 was enacted as part of the Homeland Security Act of 2002. The act is “intended to facilitate the development and deployment of effective anti-terrorism technologies by creating systems of ‘risk management’ and ‘litigation management” (SAFETY Act 101 Briefing).

In laymen’s terms, the act was created to encourage and help organizations implement anti-terrorism technologies. Prior to 9/11, organizations were reluctant to deploy these technologies due to the enormous liability risks involved. The act helps organizations manage these liabilities where Qualified Anti-Terrorism Technologies (QATTs) are deployed.

Examples of eligible technologies include:

Threat and vulnerability assessment services
Detection systems
Blast mitigation materials
Screening services
Sensors and sensor integration
Threatening object detectors
Decision support software
Security plans/services
Crisis management systems
Venue security

There is a strict process to obtain SAFETY Act certification. If you are interested in learning more about this process, check out the SAFETY Act 101 Briefing document in our sources below.

Eligible Technology that Leverages Twitter

Two recent SAFETY Act technology approvals include:

Real-time, web-based situational awareness dashboards, data surveillance and early-warning software system.
Anti-terrorism detection, collection and analysis tool for the detection of terrorist surveillance and pre-attack planning.

BrightPlanet’s BlueJay Twitter Scanner tool meets these recent approvals in addition to threat and vulnerability assessment services, decision support software, security services, and venue security.

Currently in use by the Detroit Tigers and Detroit Red Wings, Rick Fenton, Vice President of Security Operations at Illitch Holdings said

“The BlueJay Twitter Scanner has quickly become our go-to tool for scanning Twitter for threats to and around Comerica Park, home of the Detroit Tigers, and Joe Louis Arena, home of the Detroit Red Wings. Intelligence produced from BlueJay has enabled us to prevent incidents, respond quicker to incidents, and moreover, create a safer environment for the public, our employees and professional teams.”

BlueJay provides law enforcement, intelligence and security professionals the ability to monitor events in real-time on a web-based situational awareness dashboard through Twitter. They can see what is going on around the venue before, during and after an event.

Users can geo-fence around areas of interest and capture all the tweets that are being produced in that area in addition to tracking keywords related to their event and venue.