DHS IP Stakeholder Input ICR 60-day Notice

Yesterday the DHS Office of Infrastructure Protection published a 60-day notice of their intention to file a new information collection request (ICR) authorizing them to collect information from the infrastructure protection community.

The Office of Infrastructure Protection (OIP) is charged with the coordination of “the overall effort to enhance the protection of the Nation's critical infrastructure and key resources” (CIKR, 75 FR 67989). A key portion of that effort includes the sharing “homeland security information relevant to threats and vulnerabilities in national critical infrastructure and key resources with other Federal departments and agencies, State and local governments, and the private sector in a timely manner”.

While OIP has been working on these coordination and information sharing requirements for a number of years now, there has not been an information feedback mechanism established to allow them to gauge the effectiveness of their efforts. To correct that deficiency they are planning on putting such a feedback system into place. The system envisioned would:

• Provide a baseline for the effectiveness of efforts to improve the security of the Nation's infrastructure;
• Assist in validating and achieving IP's strategic and mission area objectives;
• Obtain a better understanding of the evolving infrastructure protection and resiliency requirements of IP's stakeholders;
• Increase the visibility and awareness of the critical infrastructure protection and resilience mission;
• Initiate the coordination and uniformity of outreach efforts by IP, sector-specific agencies, and other partners engaged in the infrastructure protection mission; and
• Collect feedback regarding event, threat or service-specific activities in a timely fashion.

This ICR would support that effort allowing OIP to establish three separate mechanisms to collect information from the various infrastructure protection stakeholders. Those mechanisms would include:

• Surveys,
• Focus Groups, and
• Interviews

The DHS OIP expects to send out 5,980 surveys that would take about 40 minutes to complete; hold focus group meetings (2 hours each) containing a total of about 260 respondents, and conduct about 60 one-hour interviews as part of their information collection process.

Public comments on the Notice are requested and may be submitted via the Federal eRulemaking Portal (Docket #: DHS-2010-0084). Comments need to be submitted by January 3, 2011.