Proto-Talks

Transcription

Matt Morgan:
Hello and welcome to our eighth installment of Proto-Talks. I'm your host Matt Morgan, president of Protogetic. The protective design industry's first digital marketplace. We're very proud to recognize our sponsor, Calpipe, a leading manufacturer of high quality perimeter security products.
Today's 70 minute discussion will help us all gain a greater understanding of the SAFETY Act and why it's a vital asset to both manufacturers and protective design professionals. To that end, I'm very proud to introduce Don Roberts, the acting deputy director of the Office of SAFETY Act Implementation, or OSAI for the Department of Homeland Security.
Mr. Roberts joined the Science and Technology Directorate of DHS in 2006 as a program manager with more than 18 years of experience supervising advanced research, development, test and evaluation at the Department of Defense. Prior to coming to the OSAI, he was the DHS S&T program manager for Canine and surface transportation security programs for over 10 years. His programs developed and improved tools, techniques, and knowledge to prevent attacks on critical infrastructure, key assets and the public through science and technology. Don, welcome to Proto-Talks. It's great to have you.
Donald Roberts:
Hey, Matt. Thank you. It's great to be here.
Matt Morgan:
Good, good. It's great you're here because I can't tell you how many times we fielded inquiries about the SAFETY Act, its process and how to go about applying. So it's super to have you here and I'm really looking forward to the presentation.
Donald Roberts:
Yeah. No, we greatly appreciate the opportunity. The SAFETY Act is a very nuanced program. It's not a widely known program. And that's why part of our mission is outreach to our stakeholders, to communities like yours that you support in the protective design industry. So we're really happy to be here. That's part of our mission is outreach. And no, we're looking forward to it.
Matt Morgan:
Okay, great. Well, let's not banter anymore. Let's move on. Take it away, Don.
Donald Roberts:
All right. Let me try and share my screen here. See if this works out okay. Go over the first technical hurdle here. All right, let's see. I think I need to do this. There we go. Oops. There we go. All right. How's that look, Matt? We're good?
Matt Morgan:
Yeah, that looks great. Good to go.
Donald Roberts:
All right. Appreciate it. All right. Well, as Matt said, I am the acting deputy director for the Office of SAFETY Act implementation here at DHS Science and Technology Directorate. So we reside, the program resides within the innovation and collaboration pillar here at Science and Technology Directorate. And for those that aren't familiar with the DHS Science and Technology Directorate, basically the S&T as we refer to it is the research and development arm of the department. It supports all the operational components. As Matt mentioned, my previous jobs were supporting Canine, surface transportation programs. But so we are the R&D arm of DHS. And so I'm currently serving as the acting deputy director for Office of SAFETY Act Implementation. I'm also the senior technical advisor for the office.
Just going through. There we go. Little quick on the trigger there. So as with many things in the government, the safety portion of the SAFETY Act is an acronym. It does stand for Support to Anti-Terrorism by Fostering Effective Technologies Act. The SAFETY Act was a bit of a forward leaning thinking piece within the original Homeland Security bill of 2002. And it was a piece of legislation that was meant to encourage and incentivize innovation by providing liability caps and risk management tools for companies developing anti-terrorism technology. That was very clear after 9/11 that this was a component of standing up DHS that was really a forward thinking piece of the legislation. And so like I said, it's a nuanced program.
It's not fully understood by the general public and even the stakeholders. And that's why we look forward to these outreach opportunities to really answer your questions and give you a grounding on how we go about applying what it's all about and basically put ourselves out there as a resource for you guys and folks that we want to encourage and spark innovation in this area of anti-terrorism technology.
So you could see that qualified anti-terrorism technologies range from products, equipment, services to design technologies to include information technologies, cyber that are designed, developed, modified, procured, or sold for the purpose of preventing, detecting, identifying or deterring acts of terrorism. It's a wide lens of how we view and how the legislation defined what anti-terrorism technologies are. And that's what we try and make ourselves out there.
Because we don't know the full scope of the innovation universe. And we want to make sure that we are educating and having folks understand. You can see here, I'll talk a little bit more about these protection levels, but you can see the certifications on the bottom. We have a developmental test and evaluation designation that is covering technologies that are not quite mature, but are showing promise that you can get coverage while you're developing these technologies in a test and evaluation role. In the operational environment. There's the full designation where the technology has proven effectiveness. And then there's the highest level of protections in our certification that we have high confidence that these technologies will have continued effectiveness in the operational environment, supporting an anti-terrorism role.
Let's see. So I mentioned the scope a little bit and the SAFETY Act universe as we see it. And I want to make sure that going back, it's a very wide definition of what can prevent, detect, deter terrorism acts. It's a diverse range of technologies. I want to caution that we put the timelines on these types of technologies only to show that that was the preponderance of technologies coming in at that time. The office was reviewing more applications for those types of technologies and bollards, barriers, security services, detection devices, sensors, all in the initial realm that really got spun up after 9/11.
But since then, other folks being innovative and looking forward, we branched out to stadiums and arenas, covering science and engineering and integration into facilities, mass notification systems and looking forward, we drive and sometimes have to take a step back and see what kind of policy decisions we have to make as far as in the cyber realm. In the artificial intelligence and outdoor venues. Those kind of things to see how that fits and how we can provide protections to folks who are trying to be innovative in that space.
So this is a breakdown of application types. I mentioned the full designation, which is the bulk of the applications that the technology has shown some effectiveness, is proven to be effective in the operational environment. You can see that about half have the designation certification piece, which is the highest level of protections. And then you see that about a third of the applications are more in line with DT&E because it's really... I'll talk a little bit more about what that means, but it's more transitory. It's, we're collecting the data in order to support a full designation application.
So trying to show that these technologies are effective, innovative, and they work in the operational environment. So that's why that's on the lower end. But you can see from early days of the program, this has been the breakdown kind of in the pie chart is that security services, detection technologies have been the bulk, but getting more into more of the information technologies, cyber and other types. Systems engineerings and integration, that kind of thing.
Let's see. It's a little touchy. Apologies. So when we talk about criteria and our evaluation process, there are in the regulatory framework of how we are to conduct a business, there are eight major criteria that we look at, that frame the evaluation space. Has it had prior use and does it have effectiveness? Does it have utility and effectiveness in the space? Has it been used in the US? Is it available for deployment? Because this isn't to support R&D development necessarily. This is, even when I talk about developmental tests and evaluation, it's really operational test and evaluation. It's not developmental. It's more of the operational side. Does it work in the operational space?
So criteria two, is it available for public use? Is it available for deployment in the anti-terrorism space? Criteria three, does the technology have any third party liabilities? Remember this is a liability protections program. This is envisioned to provide risk management for companies to cap their liability protection in the event that the technologies have been involved in a terrorist act. So we have to establish that there is some third party liability exposure there.
Criteria four is more of, will it be deployed in your opinions if it does not have protections? We have to assess that simply again, because we're trying to drive innovation. We want to know what the liabilities are. We want to be able to manage the risk and we want to be able to ensure that we're filling a particular gap in an anti-terrorism space that shows a need. So will you be able to deploy this without protections? That factors in our evaluations.
Criteria five is more the magnitude of risk exposure to the public, kind of inline with four, if this is not deployed. Again, it's a gap that we see. We've got to fill this gap. It may be less mature, but it's an important gap that we need to fill in the anti-terrorism space. So what is the risk exposure to the public if we can't deploy this technology?
So that is also factored into the review and the analysis. Proven capability to reduce the risk of harm. This is really scientific studies that can feasibly be conducted to assess whether this technology has a capability to substantially reduce the risk to the public. That is really looking at... So for crash tests and things like that. Scientific studies that show that this type of technology avenue is proven. And is proven to show that it does reduce the risk. Criteria seven is really the effectiveness piece. Do you have some data that you've collected, either in a laboratory, best is the operational environment to show that your technology is being effective against this proposed act of terrorism. And then criteria eight is really more about, has it been determined, is it appropriate for use by federal, state, local officials? Have they been using it? Do they support this? Are they identifying it as a gap?
And within the legislation, the undersecretary has the ability to weigh these different factors. And as you might hear me allude to that, if it's an important gap that we're filling, but yet we don't have proven operational effectiveness data, maybe the other criteria can be weighed a little heavy. So the legislation and the regulations that we follow for this do allow for certain reviews of that nature. And you can see that the designation applies to both the developmental test and evaluation designation as well as the full designation, which is the blue seal.
So what are the benefits from a seller or a user of SAFETY Act technology? So in the DT&E space really allows you, a manufacturer or a seller to collect data in the operational space, deployed and have coverage for that deployment. If you are deploying and you are deploying in the operational environment, your collecting data and a terrorist act happens and it's declared by the secretary as a terrorist act, and you are using that, you're covered. Your liability cap is set for this DT&E period.
So it's a limited approval. Typically two to three years to collect that operational data to support then a full designation because that goes towards technology showing proven effectiveness. So the full designation sets the liability cap. You're only responsible up to that cap. And so the other things that go along with that is exclusions, actions can only be taken in federal court. No joint and severable liability for non-economic damages. So more of the all in one suits to protect you and focus that. And then there's no punitive damages that go along with that certification. That go along with the protection level at the full designation space.
So in addition... So the next highest level, what that is, is really the certification. The protections at the certified level. This really is showing a technology that has the highest level confidence of continued effectiveness, of long term protection. So in addition to, when evaluating technologies that want to come in for certification, they have to meet the designation criteria. But in addition, they have to show that it performs as it's intended and will continue to be effective. That long term performance. Confidence that is a technology that we can rely on going forward. That conforms to the seller spec and is safe to use as intended. So that is really what the certification criteria is what we assess when we're assessing the criteria for certification. And the benefits is all the benefits of the designation that I talked about. In addition, there's the protections level to go to a government contractor defense. Where you could face zero liability. And then it's also placed on our SAFETY Act website. That's one contention to being a certified technology is it's placed on the SAFETY Act website.
So now I'll go... I talked about just what the protections are, but I want to go through a little bit about the application process and what's involved with that for a particular technology or service. And there's three major pieces of that. There's the pre-submission. And we very much encourage applicants, sellers of this technology [inaudible 00:20:02] to go through and contact our office and really go through a pre-application process with us. And I'll talk a little bit more about why that's important for us and you relative to the timelines that are set in the regulations. But this is where we walk through the application with you. We go through what's important based on your specific technology. What we like to see. Test and evaluation reports, training, whatever is standard operating procedures, those kind of things that you can just tick off. We also do a number of site visits.
Obviously the pandemic did hurt our ability to start that, but we've really leaned in, in earnest this year and started back on our site visits. It really helps with some of the more complex technologies that we like to see and some of the testing and things like that. But it really is our general outreach piece that helps both to make the process more understandable for the applicant side, but much more efficient for our evaluators when the full applications come in. Because we're already familiar with it, we already know where the issues may be. So it makes the application process much more efficient going forward. So we very much encourage all applicants to take advantage of this pre-application, pre-submission piece that we have in place. So going through the application, that's when our regulatory timelines start. You can submit applications for designation and certification, designation only, DT&E designation. Block applications are something that's different. I don't think it would apply necessarily to this space.
It's more of things that we deal with, with TSA and CBP that are... They help us in understanding that the applicant has already checked the technical block. We look at more of the economic analysis and piece in that. And then the renewal submissions. Typically the timeline for protections is about five years. In the regulations it can go as many as eight, but our typical timelines have been five. And then after that, there's a renewal cycle that we like to review the innovation piece, the type of threats, the evolution, things like that. How has the technology changed? How have you learned it's more effective? Things like that.
And then the post-award piece is really, if you have an award for say a particular bollard or a particular barrier that meets a passenger car rating, but you're in development to bring it up to a heavy truck, that's where we would give you protections and designation for what you have the effectiveness data on now.
And then you could come in after that award and submit for a modification to upgrade or put in another variant of your technology. And it's a condensed process and it saves time in the long run. So there's those factors. That's what the notice of modification, and that can happen in a post-award. And our contours are really just technical requests that we write into our designations. Do you have certain standard operating procedures that you're updating? We want to see those. We write those into some of our designations. We know you're going to do some testing. We want to see that regular testing data. So submit those every six months or every year. That's what we write into our... Those are post-award action. The pre-application process is important because once you submit your application, your full application as per regulations, we are on the clock. And the clock is calendar days, it's not work days.
So we have a completeness phase for 30 days that we evaluate, is there enough here to evaluate? That's why I go to taking advantage of the pre-application process to ensure that what you’re submitting is complete. Because if it's not complete, we put it back and go off of our timeline and it's back to you. And we give you a incompleteness letter where we say, "Hey, this is what we need. This is what we need." So along that way, the next piece is we go into our... Once we deem an application complete, we go into our technical and economic review. The office is supported in these reviews by federally funded research and development centers, both the Institute for Defense Analysis, IDA and RAND, to provide technical and economic subject matter experts to help us. We're a small federal office, I think there's 10 of us, of federal employees within this office.
So we're supplemented by FFRDCs in this process. But they do the review, it's gone through a quality check. Our purpose is to make a recommendation for the undersecretary to approve the protections for. So that's written in the original legislation that the Secretary of Homeland Security has delegated to the undersecretary of Science and Technology as the designation authority. So our office reviews and gives a recommendation up to the undersecretary. And then you can see at the bottom there that the undersecretary has a 45 day extension process.
And given the fact that technologies have gone from very easy to assess, bollards, magnetometers, early on things, to things as all-encompassing as layered securities at stadiums. The amount of material that the office has to review has grown 10 to a 100 times in some cases. So we do have currently a bit of a backlog. But we are with Director Thompson, who's been on board for about a year now. We're really getting the office much more efficient and effective and meeting our regulatory timelines. Apologies.
And this is really what we want to spend a lot of time in the pre-application process is the technology description. What is your technology? This is the legally binding piece of what you're getting protections for. So that's why we spend a bit of time in the pre-application and in the designation submission application that you propose a particular technology description. And then we look to refine it based on our experience, coordinate that and arrive at a technology description that fits what will be the basis of the liability in the event of an act of terrorism. And then lastly, our office.
We see ourselves as realizing the original intent of the forward thinking legislation in driving innovation, having widespread use of best practices in stadiums. Because that’s when we look at things to assess, is there a standard established? Do you conform in that industry to that standard or that best practice? That gives us a basis for analysis. And that's helped us, especially with the sports leagues. They have started, their offices of security have established best practices that we've given SAFETY Act protections for. That they promulgate out to their leagues, their stadiums, their arenas.
That raise the level of protection out in the community for the public at large. And we're very proud of that piece of it. And finally, this is us. This is how you get in contact with us. You can send us an email at our help desk to ask any questions. You can leave a message on that line. You can go to our safetyact.gov website to learn a lot more things about the application process and technologies that have been approved or are on there. Just a wealth of information there as a starting point. But again, we are here as an outreach source for you guys with any questions you have. And with that, we're here to take any questions you may have now.
Matt Morgan:
Okay, great.
Donald Roberts:
[inaudible 00:29:38] my slideshow.
Matt Morgan:
Don, thank you very much. That was very, very informative. And let's bring on our panelists for the Proto-Talk. We're fortunate to be joined by Miss Rachel Abreu, a senior case manager at the Department of Homeland Securities Office of the SAFETY Act implementation. Miss Abreu provides strategic leadership and counsel and works directly with the critical infrastructure community so that they may deploy effective anti-terrorism products and services and successfully achieve SAFETY Act protections. Thank you for coming, Rachel. It's great to have you here.
Rachel Abreu:
Thank you Matt. And thank you for having us today. I'm happy to help and answer any questions we can.
Matt Morgan:
Good. I'm going to start it off just because there are so many questions to ask. But I'll probably just start with you Rachel. What is the most common question that you have coming in from manufacturers regarding the SAFETY Act? Is it timing? Is it process and procedure, documentation?
Rachel Abreu:
I think the most common question I get from manufacturers, and frankly for anyone coming in and applying for SAFETY Act protections is, help me describe my technology to you in a way that the department can then take that for analysis and provide ultimate protections for. And that's that legal description that we're looking for. One and two pages of what is it that you're worried about in terms of liability that you're coming to our office to apply for SAFETY Act liability protections for? Regarding acts of terrorism. Knowing that we're not an all hazard program, we only relate to anti-terrorism.
So what we try to remind our applicants is to be very thorough in describing what they're seeking protections for. Be specific. What is it that your technology is? That term of art I use, technology means anything. Product, service, system. Why is it designed to protect against?
What are the threats? How do you test it? How do you know it works? What are the principle elements? What are the subsystems and components of it? What materials of construction do you use? What's your lifecycle? Quality control practices? Your design services maybe associated with that? Who are your suppliers? Do you have subcontractors? What are their roles in the development and the deployment of your technology? So really just sitting down and thoroughly thinking and writing that out is probably the hardest step, but the most important step. And then once you go from there, the process I think gets much easier.
Matt Morgan:
Right. Okay. All right. We do have a lot of questions coming in. Just to remind everybody, this is pretty important. Please do put your questions into the Q&A part, not into the chat part. The Q&A, they'll get fielded much quicker and easier. Also, we're going to be sending a quick survey to identify some topics for the future that you might want to see covered. That's very important. Please do take the time to fill that out. Okay. First question.
Don, you touched on this for a few moments in your presentation, but this one's coming from Timothy Sison. Looking through the SAFETY ACT website, I noticed that the Philadelphia Eagles and Colorado Rockies baseball club are designated. How does the SAFETY Act apply to organizations like these?
Donald Roberts:
Yeah, that's a good question. So I mentioned that stadiums... Or I mentioned that our applications have grown from 10 to a 100 times of material. So how we apply to that is we provide protections to the stadium layered security program for things like for Philadelphia Eagles games. So we assess their layered protection, their screening, their training of their folks working. Assess how they treat the vendor trucks, how they treat the security, the patrons, and how they approach security at those stadiums for game events.
Rachel Abreu:
I was going to add onto that. We also assess how they utilize different layers of security such as active or passive barriers. How do they fit that into their concept of operations? How do they train on that? How do they maintain it? So they may procure SAFETY Act designated technologies and use them, but they also have a role for their concept of operations and how they deploy them for their venue.
Matt Morgan:
Yeah. All right. Next question is from Baxter Matthews. My company offers nine different models of bollards. Do we need to fill out an application for each of the nine individually? Rachel?
Rachel Abreu:
That's a good question. The answer is, it depends. You're going to hear me say that a lot. It depends how similar they are. And when you start going through the application and you start speaking with our office to see what type of supporting information you need to submit, you'll start to realize how diverse that information set might be or might not be. So do you have specification manuals that are very similar for all of those nine different types of bollards, or what are the differences there? So we'll ask you questions such as that. Don, do you have any input for this one?
Donald Roberts:
Yeah. No, I mean that's the answer. And typically I've seen different models of different X-ray devices being incorporated into the same application. And as Rachel said, as long as it's not a diverse type of technology, if all the bollards are in the same kind of technology realm, it typically can be fit into one application.
Matt Morgan:
Okay. All right. And I had just a quick question on that. When they are in the application process, when they are providing documentation, and some of that is scientific and research documentation coming from say, a third party test house, I assume that your department also vets or tests, or excuse me, vets that test house. As to their qualifications for being a test house. Correct?
Donald Roberts:
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's not like Don's garage test house. Is it Underwriter Laboratories? Is it something along those lines? Right? We certainly look at the sources of where the information is coming from, is a better way to say it I guess. Is it credible? And it could be Don's garage and they could have best practices that equate to an underwriter's lab, but certainly we ask for that documentation to show that the data that we're getting follows best practices in collecting that type of data. For sure.
Matt Morgan:
Right. And do you also look for certain credentials like an ASO, ISO or an A2LA kind of thing as well? Or is it just totally based on-
Donald Roberts:
[inaudible 00:37:38].
Matt Morgan:
Okay, great.
Donald Roberts:
Makes it more helpful.
Rachel Abreu:
Technology category, absolutely. And we also check to see if you're using the most recent best practices. We've had some applicants that are using outdated best practices materials.
Matt Morgan:
I had a question about that and I was going to ask later on, but here is one from Holly Stone. Do you think that this program is a good fit for an engineering company that provides blast resistant assessment and design? Don?
Donald Roberts:
Yeah, I think the design we have, Rachel can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that design principles and design companies that are in the anti-terrorism protection realm are certainly within the space of fitting for SAFETY Act protections.
Rachel Abreu:
Absolutely.
Matt Morgan:
Okay. And this one from Akash Patel. For anti-ram vehicle barriers, do you have to be on the DoD list only or is design rated also allowed to get SAFETY Act approval?
Rachel Abreu:
I want to get back to you on this question. Because I don't want to misspeak. I want to say that I don't believe they have to be DoD listed, but I would like to get back to you on that. So we'll get your details or you our contact information, please reach out to us so we can follow up with you.
Matt Morgan:
Okay. All right, Mr. Patel, we will get back to you on that one. That's for sure. The next one is from Joel Velazquez. Does an owner have a compounding benefit by using a protective design firm covered by SAFETY Act and using SAFETY Act products?
Donald Roberts:
I think that's really up to them to decide. I mean, the SAFETY Act provides risk mitigation strategies or liability protection. So from your third party exposure, you would have to assess whether that is a compounding for that particular situation or not. I mean, that would be...
Rachel Abreu:
Everyone's situation is different. So you have to assess if anything works for you. Knowing that it's been vetted through the SAFETY Act process, I think can certainly be helpful for you when selecting things. And it's also nice to know that SAFETY Act protections do extend to users. And that if there was unfortunately a time where you have to use your SAFETY Act protections, you may be protected against, through downstream or upstream protections because suits can only be brought against the seller of the technology. So there are benefits.
Matt Morgan:
Okay. All right. Great. And that kind of leads me to a question that I have as well as, is there a example that you can give where the SAFETY Act was challenged in court or in a litigation process that you can recall? And how did that whole thing evolve and what was the outcome?
Rachel Abreu:
No.
Donald Roberts:
Rachel, I'll let you.
Rachel Abreu:
Yeah, fortunately it has not been tested in court yet. So no, we cannot give you an example.
Matt Morgan:
Okay. Well, then...
Donald Roberts:
And Matt, I'll add that one of the things that the SAFETY Act protections engage when the Homeland Security secretary deems an act, an act of terrorism. It's not just anything. It's events that the secretary deems acts of terrorism.
Matt Morgan:
Okay.
Donald Roberts:
That's where protections engage.
Matt Morgan:
Good. Next question. Do SAFETY Act or any protections transfer from the seller to the buyer implementation of technology?
Rachel Abreu:
So that kind of goes back to what I was speaking about before, but then you used the word implementation. No. However, how you implement a technology, I mean, you could procure the best things since sliced bread and how you implement the technology and how you maintain it and then deploy it, that technology could be useless.
Matt Morgan:
Okay. Okay. Is there an example where someone has applied for the SAFETY Act and has essentially not been approved? Was it a matter of technology? Was it a matter of not filling out the correct process? Just, I want to sort of get the information out there about what can happen or what the reasons would be behind something not getting approved on the SAFETY Act.
Rachel Abreu:
Don, you want to take that one?
Donald Roberts:
Yeah. I mean, it could fall within... It has to fall within the anti-terrorism realm. There's some things that come in that just don't fit in that space. Safety versus security. There's certain technologies that come in and don't follow best practices, don't have the proven data, don't have any third party risk that we can identify in the use of this technology.
So there's a number of different... In the pieces of the criteria that I laid out, usually it's that. And in some of the cases that they're just not getting the data. We help them with framing out what test events they could do to collect that data. And some technologies are more appropriate for the DT&E in the less mature stage. But it ranges in the gamut of what potentially could be denied. But typically I would say, and Rachel please join, is that it just doesn't fit within the anti-terrorism realm.
Rachel Abreu:
And those are rare. I mean, to have flat out denials is very rare due to our consultations that we provide in our program office. We try to never let it get there. We will provide you feedback as much as we can to voice our concerns, if any, to work with you towards either achieving SAFETY Act protections eventually, or just being candid and saying, "Hey, you may not be a great fit for SAFETY Act." I mean, it doesn't happen very frequently.
Matt Morgan:
Okay. All right. And this is a bit of a long question from Steve Kemper, and I'm reading this for the first time. So just... If a SAFETY Act designated or certified product/technology is manufactured in USA by a US company, but is deployed overseas and an event happens where DHS is not involved with designating the event as an act of terrorism, do the SAFETY Act protections apply to the product and technology?
Rachel Abreu:
No. Like Don said before, the secretary of the department must declare an act of terrorism for SAFETY Act purposes for you to be able to invoke your protections. And that would require a very catastrophic event for that to occur. That affects American citizens and lives.
Matt Morgan:
So even if the event didn't happen on US soil, he could designate it as an act of terrorism and protections would apply.
Rachel Abreu:
Possibly. That's a very gray area. But yeah, potentially.
Matt Morgan:
Okay. All right. Okay. Next question. From your slide... This is for you, Don. From your slide on evolving technologies, can you speak more about what is anti-terrorism financing and why you see it as a future technology?
Donald Roberts:
Yeah, that is a good question. It's a good question for us internally as well. Yeah, we put that on there because that's a current technology that we are looking into for policy decisions, frankly. And it's certain folks that wire transfer money around the world. And could be potentially exposed in financing something that is linked back to terrorism. As Rachel said, first of all, that would have to be declared an act of terrorism by the secretary. But there are also current regulations in place that have these companies that they are forced to follow best practices, standards, and certain laws that they have to monitor this.
That they have to put in certain protections in house. And the SAFETY Act isn't going to duplicate or negate any kind of other federal regulations or roles that are on there. So one of the reasons that we're looking into the space is, you might imagine these folks are making the case for coverage, but then we have to talk to the treasury folks and the other folks that implement those types of regulations and laws and say, "Are we crossing the boundaries here? Is SAFETY Act protections adding on to, duplicating what's already in place from your federal regulation?"
So that's a very good pick on that because that is something that the office is currently looking into. And as you might imagine, the DHS legal counsel and other federal agency legal counsels really have to put their heads together and decipher that. And fortunately, I think I mentioned I was the senior technical advisor, not the senior legal advisor. So that's for smarter folks than I am to decipher. But that is something that we're looking into. It's certainly within the realm of the space that have come in and we're currently working through. But good question. Yeah.
Matt Morgan:
Okay. And next question is, can you go through the timeline for application and process just one more time in a general manner? The overall start to finish, about 120 days, that kind of thing.
Donald Roberts:
Sure. Yeah. And so in the regulations, it did spell out 120 days that we have internally. If we deem an application incomplete, we can kick it back and the timeline has to start over when the new application comes in. But during that time, we do a pretty thorough job of saying why it was incomplete. Why we see, these are the gaps you need to fill to make it a more complete application. If we do deem it complete... So that completeness phase is about 30 days, first month. And then we have about 50 days, 50, 60 days about the next two months, to do the evaluation. To do the technical evaluation, to coalesce all of that. And internally, we have about two more weeks to take that recommendation or to take that analysis, put it into a recommendation for the undersecretary. What did they apply for? Designation, full designation.
And then along the way we do have certain outreach pieces. And one of the key pieces, and I don't think I mentioned this, is in the completeness phase. We may see that you're lacking your standard operating procedure for a piece of the layer that you're submitting. So we would deem it complete, but we would say, "We need to see this standard operating procedure. We need to see these crash tests that you alluded to in your documentation." So we would keep the process moving, but we would put out a request for information to fill that gap as we're going through the timeline. And then we allow two weeks, a little more for the application, the recommendation to bubble up out of our pillar to the undersecretary. And then we factor in a few days of questions from the undersecretary or the designee that's going to sign the documentation.
So all of that is about 120. But what we've said that some of the larger application space, like a layered security, really we go up against the... In the regulations it does say for no specific reason, the undersecretary has an additional 45 days. Sorry about that. An additional 45 days over and above the 120. So we really have 165 to get it done. For the larger applications that's what it takes.
And that's why I say take advantage of the pre-application process because that information gathering that we have, if we have 75% of the application and then we need to go ask you for the other 25%, it's really going to push on that 165 and beyond. So the pre-application process is where we can get more efficient in the timeline before we submit it, before we go on the clock, so to speak. So I hope that answers your question. But yeah, it's 120 in the regulations with a 45 day extension process that we have. So that is our regulatory timeline to get these done.
Matt Morgan:
And this is just coming from me and it's just my opinion, but that's a very reasonable amount of time. I think that's a pretty efficient process given what we're talking about here and the importance and the level of what the effectiveness that people are looking to have. I think 120 to 165 days is...
Rachel Abreu:
Calendar days.
Matt Morgan:
Calendar days.
Donald Roberts:
Calendar days.
Matt Morgan:
[inaudible 00:53:11] more than reasonable to me. Yeah, I mean...
Donald Roberts:
It's challenging with, like I said, hundreds of documents coming in equaling thousands of pages. And one of the things that's not said in the regulations is, we will do our due diligence. Because it matters and it's important to us. And so we get it done in 121 days or 167 days. The more important piece is our due diligence and representing the mission that we are here to serve. And so the office is, we attempt to be as efficient as we can with this. But our due diligence is also a priority for us.
Matt Morgan:
And do you have a... What do I want to call it? Obviously you get an application number. Yeah. But do you also get assigned an application manager that you can call in and connect with and sort of say, "Hey, how is my application moving along? What's the status?" Or is that just done electronically during the process?
Donald Roberts:
No, that's a good point, Matt, is that we have a staff of federal case managers. So each case manager is assigned a specific application. And that case manager lives with that application from inception into the office until the approval and beyond to the renewal, for the most part. If they're still around in the office. But yes, they are assigned a specific contact, point of contact, case manager for their application.
Matt Morgan:
Okay. So essentially we're looking at, you have an application manager or a case manager. The process is looking at 120 to 165 days. Is straightforward. You get a pre-application process. All of these things are sort of wrapped into one package, and it makes it effectively easy and simple and straightforward. The next question is, who are you guys? Because this is not typical to a lot of government processes. This is really quite straightforward and easy.
Donald Roberts:
Well...
Matt Morgan:
Well, I don't want to use [inaudible 00:55:46].
Donald Roberts:
I think straightforward and easy I might argue.
Matt Morgan:
Yeah. I caught that. No, no, no, no. I caught that. I caught that. I'm not going to use the word easy, but it is straightforward and you do get support and assistance.
Donald Roberts:
I would say that the processes that the office has put in place to realize the mission that was envisioned in the legislation has been something that really is a nuance to the government, in my opinion. And in managing programs in DoD and DHS I would say that this is a real nuanced program. And in evaluating the technology piece to see that it's effective and to judge the liability cap based on economic, the revenue, the risk base, it's a complexity that is a little lost.
I mean, the guys that do this, there's some complex formulas that we use. There's some analysis that goes into this by very smart people that it's impressive, I have to say. I mean, it is not something that the average person knows about with SAFETY Act. We started off with, it's a very nuanced program, but I think putting this process in place, being within this regulatory timeline, the office, and I've only been here a couple years, really did put a streamlined process in place to realize this mission, this important mission that we have.
Put a process in place that allows us public outreach with this pre-application process, with site visits that really get down to allowing the application or the applicant community to get to know what the application process is and not just be some electronic form that you submit.
You could go that way. The forms are on the website, but we really strive to make it more personal and try and help you understand why we're asking these questions as well, and why we need this and why it supports the due diligence that the mission demands.
Matt Morgan:
And I think it is actually an important point to make. And an important support element to have within the program is. And we have it at Protogetic all the time. We have a very automated, simple, straightforward process for requesting pricing quotes from our manufacturers. You just hit a button and that's it. But what we're seeing is there's a lot of people out there that don't want to just hit that button and have their request go into cyberspace.
They want to talk to a human being. They have questions, they need an assurance. And I think that's a really important element to be able to contact a human being nowadays and have a conversation, get your questions answered by someone. Rather than wait for an email response that may or may not come. And you're certainly unsure of it. So I think that's actually a really helpful aspect to it.
Donald Roberts:
I mean, that is something that Dr. Thompson has really wanted to be better at is putting us forward in outreach events like this to understand a little bit more of what the office is about, how to contact us. We did webinars for Major League Baseball and National Football League and really just trying to put certain efficiencies in place, is that you will expect to hear back from us at a certain amount of time. Those kind of things.
That's an element that has existed in the past, but that's an element of this office that has been in place. A lot of site visits as the office has gone on. And assigning these federal case managers to the applicant and to the application, I think is extremely helpful in the process.
Matt Morgan:
Could not agree more. Couldn't agree more. Well, this has been really great. We are just running right up to the edge of the end of our session, so I'm going to sign off now. Don, Rachel, thank you so much for coming aboard and talking about the SAFETY Act. I think you've clarified quite a bit of it for a lot of people out there, and I'd like to thank you for that.
Well, I'd also like to thank our sponsor, Calpipe. Go ahead and check out their products on our website, protogetic.com. And please fill out that survey because obviously we'd like to hear from you and see what topics you'd like to hear about in the future. So we'll sign off now. Don, Rachel again, thank you and everyone have a good day and stay safe.
Donald Roberts:
Right. Thank you, Matt.
Rachel Abreu:
Bye, everyone.
Matt Morgan:
Bye all.