Information Management Capabilities in Public Safety and Security: Challenges, Strategies and Frameworks

Fraser Moffatt is a Defence Scientist working for Defence Research and Development Canada’s Centre for Security Science. Mr. Moffatt earned his undergraduate and graduate degrees in Geography at Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. His undergraduate studies focused on geographic information science while his graduate studies focused on the application of empirical spatial analysis methods to theories of environmental criminology. His master’s thesis developed a framework for the application of Bayesian probability to the spatial prediction of residential break and enter occurrences in an urban setting. Mr. Moffatt spent the early part of his professional career in law enforcement and public safety organizations, conducting applied research and analysis on a wide variety of operational problems. Between 2000 and 2005, Mr. Moffatt held sessional lecturer positions in graduate and undergraduate courses in Geography and Environmental Science at Carleton University and the University of Ottawa. Since 2009, Mr. Moffatt has focused on military and public safety information management problems and has delivered R&D advice, assistance and solutions at local, national and international levels including municipal, provincial and federal public safety organizations in Canada and for the United Nations Department of Safety and Security. Mr. Moffatt served as a deployed operational research analyst and advisor for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Training Mission in Afghanistan (NTM-A). Mr. Moffatt currently serves as a technical advisor on the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police (CACP) Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Committee.

Brian Rector graduated in 1983 with a Ph.D. (Psychology) from the University of Manitoba. For the first 35 years of his professional career, he was employed with the Government of Saskatchewan as director of psychology/treatment positions in fields such as developmental disabilities, child welfare, youth and adult correctional services. During this time Dr. Rector collaborated with the U.S. Department of Justice: Probation and Pre-Trial Services, in training, implementing, and evaluating evidence-based practices. He has collaborated with multiple Canadian Universities in the fields of Forensic Psychology, Mathematics, Computer Science, Public Health and Economics.

Prior to his recent retirement from the Edmonton Police Service (EPS), Dr. Rector was the inaugural Senior Director of the Community Solutions Branch. He supervised a team of senior scientists in the fields of Mathematics, Computer Science, and Applied Statistics. The team works within a cloud-based secure data lab that can include data from external police services. Projects involve various combinations of EPS subject-matter experts and university scientists reflecting the skill sets required for each initiative. All research initiatives involving university partners are reviewed and approved by their respective Ethics Research Board. The primary purpose of these initiatives is to improve public safety outcomes. Examples of initiatives included: 1. Missing Persons - in collaboration with Peel Regional Police Services; 2. Improving investigation technologies via the development of Informative AI to instantaneously analyze all unstructured and structured records across operating systems; 3. Psychoactive Substances, in collaboration with Statistics Canada, involving integrated analysis of multiple data sets. Dr. Rector is a registered psychologist in Alberta.