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  Today Online 20 Mar 07
Risk centre to keep S'pore safe, not sorry
Loh Chee Kong

Straits Times 20 Mar 07
S'pore unveils intelligent risk warning system
By Teh Joo Lin

Business Times 20 Mar 07
S'pore to set up threat assessment system

Channel NewsAsia 19 Mar 07
Singapore sets up new centre to enhance risk assessment capability

SINGAPORE : Tackling a security threat, even before it becomes an issue to be dealt with - this is what Singapore hopes to do with a new centre which will be ready in August.

The centre will be manned by seven engineers and scientists. Their main task is to enhance the country's ability to assess risk and improve Singapore's capability to weed out threats.

This was announced at the first symposium on Risk Assessment and Horizon Scanning on Monday. It was opened by Deputy Prime Minister S Jayakumar.

Risk assessment and horizon scanning, or RAHS, has been part and parcel of Singapore's security landscape since 2004.

Professor S Jayakumar, DPM and Co-ordinating National Security Minister, said: "It has the potential to be a strategic planning process to facilitate agency collaboration and to put in place a whole-of-government framework to think about a complex and uncertain future. RAHS has provided a strategic opportunity to change mindsets at various levels of government and embrace whole-of-government approach to horizon scanning."

In maritime security, for instance, Singapore has been working with the US Joint Forces to develop a risk assessment system that could piece together information on ownership, cargo, crew and voyage details and also detect the fact that a particular ship had stowaways on board.

John Petersen, President, The Arlington Institute, said: "Just identify weak signals and early indicators - I think all you have to is find one significant weak signal... that you otherwise wouldn't have seen... and it's worth what you spend for. We have tried to design it so that it is very obvious and easy to use but like any new piece of technology you have to go through a little bit of training process."

For the past 15 years, the Singapore government has been using what is called scenario planning to think about what could possibly happen in the future. Now security planners feel that with a very rapidly changing global environment, scenario planning alone is just not enough.

Security planners here say Singapore needs a system to discern patterns in a complex and chaotic environment, something which risk assessment and horizon scanning technologies can help achieve.

Peter Ho, Permanent Secretary, National Security and Intelligence Coordination, said: "It is a tool that will help planners, policymakers, decision makers better think about the future, better plan for the future but it is not going to say, well, tomorrow something is going to happen. I think if we think about RAHS as that kind of system, then I am afraid we are barking up the wrong tree.

"The second point I want to make is RAHS is not intended to replace the man in the loop, the human being, the analyst. It cannot replace human instinct to discern patterns but it can obviously remove tedium of going through masses of information and perhaps can be much more comprehensive in the way it scours massive volumes of information and data that is available to us every day."

For the longer term, it is hoped that agencies in the non-security arena will also come on board to take advantage of risk assessment and horizon scanning to make Singapore an even safer place for everyone. - CNA/ch/ms

Today Online 20 Mar 07
Risk centre to keep S'pore safe, not sorry
Loh Chee Kong

SINGAPORE'S move to put in place an early warning system to avert potential threats before disaster strikes is gathering pace ? an experimentation centre will be set up as early as August.

The centre will develop and test new technologies for the computerised Risk Assessment and Horizon Scanning (RAHS) system. Two years into the works, the system will enable analysts to sift through massive volumes of information daily for weak danger signals, as well as track social and economic trends. A working model will be rolled out by the end of the year.

At a symposium yesterday to discuss the new warning system, Professor S Jayakumar, who is the Deputy Prime Minister and Coordinating Minister for National Security, said the RAHS signals a fundamental shift in the Government's approach to forward planning.

Said Prof Jayakumar: "For the past 15 years, the Singapore Government has been using scenario planning as a useful way to think about the future. On its own, traditional scenario planning would have had little likelihood of success in anticipating events such as 911 or Sars."

If the system had been in place before the Sars outbreak, authorities here would have been able to link the initial cases of viral pneumonia patients to reports of a mysterious lung virus in southern China that had already claimed five lives, he added.

One technology showcased during the symposium allows analysts to determine the number of ships bound for Singapore from abroad and extract data on each of them, such as the owner, cargo, crew and voyage details.

Analysts can process the information to check for suspicious associations that are not apparent when each data category is examined separately.

Mr Peter Ho, head of the civil service and Permanent Secretary for National Security and Intelligence Coordination, said the RAHS experimentation centre would be manned by seven engineers and scientists.

For a start, the centre would collaborate with the United States Joint Forces Command and the Ministry of Defence on using the RAHS to detect maritime security risks, said Mr Ho. He added that the Republic was open to getting other governments on board for future projects.

Straits Times 20 Mar 07
S'pore unveils intelligent risk warning system
By Teh Joo Lin

THE various 'dots' that were signalling an impending Sars crisis in 2003 were there: Reports of a mysterious lung virus in southern China. Then, more reports of patients sick with viral pneumonia. And then a Singaporean who flew to Hong Kong was hospitalised for 10 days. In hindsight, those dots could have been joined, alerting the authorities to the severe acute respiratory syndrome's emergence as early as February 2003.

If only a system could have been devised to predict such sudden surprises and nip them in the bud. Singapore has been working on such a programme, and yesterday, it unveiled a model of its Risk Assessment and Horizon Scanning (RAHS) system, at the first international RAHS symposium.

To be ready by year's end, it will help the authorities sieve through masses of data for signs of danger, to help shield Singapore against unexpected threats. The symposium at Shangri-La Hotel was attended by security practitioners and academics from around the world. It was officiated by Deputy Prime Minister S. Jayakumar, who is also the Coordinating Minister for National Security and the Law Minister.

Professor Jayakumar said such a system would help 'uncover elements in the environment not obvious from the start, which could be missed by dependence on one particular approach'.

RAHS not only deals with surprises lurking on the horizon, but it is also adept at assisting in day-to-day operations.

One such area is maritime security, an example of which was illustrated yesterday. With some 1,000 vessels passing through the Singapore Strait daily, the authorities must decide which ones should be inspected.

RAHS can be electronically linked to an international ship information database, and sieve out details on vessels arriving in Singapore. Clicking on the names of these vessels then pulls out easily readable information about them, culled from many sources, including intelligence reports. Such details can be displayed in the form of timelines, bar graphs and pie charts, to help analysts connect the dots. It was also announced yesterday that a RAHS experimentation centre, managed by the Defence Science and Technology Agency, will be set up and ready by August.

Manned by seven engineers and scientists, as well as two cognitive psychologists, it will design experiments to further develop the system. RAHS is an open-source system and government agencies not involved in national security, as well as universities, industry players and even foreign agencies, are welcome to take part in it.

The system 'hinges critically' on collaboration between government ministries and agencies, said Prof Jayakumar, and it can help develop a 'need-to- share' habit within the Government, in contrast to the prevailing 'need-to-know' mindset.

Singapore has, for over 15 years, relied on scenario planning as a way to think about the future.

But Prof Jayakumar noted: 'On its own, traditional scenario planning would have had little likelihood of success in anticipating events like a 9/11 or Sars. 'For such complex, non-traditional threats, models and approaches that are not purely predicated on recent history or past observations are needed to help analysts discern emerging patterns of potential and novel threats,' he added.

In a separate press conference yesterday, Permanent Secretary for National Security and Intelligence Coordination Peter Ho said RAHS 'cannot replace human instinct, the ability of the human being to discern patterns, but it can remove the tedium of going through masses of information'.

For a peek at the RAHS system, catch our free video news at www.straitstimes.com

WORKS WITH REAL WORLD 'Of all efforts I've seen, this is the one that seems to be the most carefully thought out and the most mathematically sophisticated... Simulations can't really represent how the world works. This one has an interesting way of acknowledging that and working with it.' MR JARON LANIER, the computer scientist who coined the term 'virtual reality'

S'PORE A GOOD TESTBED 'Singapore is being very innovative in trying to develop this system. Being a smaller nation, it may be easier to get started here and do some experimenting with the techniques, the tools and the processes. And if it's successful, it'll be a good example of how other countries ought to be able to think about the future.'
FORMER US NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER JOHN POINDEXTER, who was director of the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency's (Darpa) Information Awareness Office

MIMICS THINKING 'It has great promise because it is based on the best of multi- disciplinary thinking. It's not just computer science, it's not just statistical analysis, it tries to mimic the way people actually think.' MR GREGORY SHERMAN, from the Public Health Agency of Canada, one of the two people who conceived the Global Public Health Intelligence Network (GPHIN) based in Canada. GPHIN searches the Net and other databases for informal sources of information on disease outbreaks, and contributes to global intelligence on communicable diseases

TAKING THE LEAD 'I think it's a great initiative... As usual, Singapore is punching above its weight. Singapore really is being a global leader here in helping to develop new forecasting methods.' TECHNOLOGY FORECASTER PAUL SAFFO, a research fellow at the Institute of the Future, which studies tech trends

Business Times 20 Mar 07
S'pore to set up threat assessment system

It is designed to be open to foreign agencies as well
By Roland Lim

IMAGINE stealing a march on terrorists. Or the United States having advance warning on Sept 11.

Thanks to a computer system developed in Singapore, authorities will be warned in advance of potential security threats, it was revealed yesterday. Apart from thwarting potential attacks, the system also has a nose for picking up early warning signs of a possible disease pandemic, natural disaster or financial crisis.

The government yesterday unveiled at the inaugural International Risk Assessment and Horizon Scanning (RAHS) Symposium plans to start a RAHS Experimentation Centre (REC) to further research and development into threat detection technologies by August this year.

The RAHS process harnesses technology to help analysts find clues amid vast amounts of digital data that could point to unexpected low probability, high-impact threats.

Highlighting the importance of this, deputy prime minister, coordinating minister for national security and minister for law, S Jayakumar, said at the event: 'RAHS is a process that would help uncover elements in the environment not obvious from the start, which could be missed by dependence on one particular approach or a reliance on just one strategic planning tool.'

The REC will be kept small, said civil service chief Peter Ho at a press briefing at the symposium, and will be staffed by seven engineers and two cognitive psychologists, adding that the investment in this centre is 'relatively small'.

At the symposium, a version of a locally developed RAHS system was demonstrated by a Defence Science and Technology Agency (DSTA) executive to the participants.

The RAHS system is able to link data from government agencies - both locally as well as from overseas agencies, and meshes the data to help analysts see the links between the different data sources, ultimately helping them identify potential security threats.

While the system was designed to meet Singapore's needs, it is designed to be open to sources from other foreign agencies, said Mr Ho.

Besides national security-related agencies, Mr Ho also said that he hopes agencies in the non-security areas can be involved in the process too, and hopes that the REC can enhance collaboration between government agencies.

The two-day International RAHS symposium which ends today, is jointly organised by the National Security Coordination Secretariat (NSCS) and the Centre of Excellence for National Security (CENS) at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and the DSTA.
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