The Microsoft Worldwide Public Safety Symposium, held at Microsoft’s headquarters in Redmond, Wash. on March 13-15, was an opportunity to hear some of the biggest challenges facing public safety agencies today. One of the panel sessions focused on the challenges of public safety agencies effectively using social media platforms to monitor, as well as communicate with, the public.

By Leischen Stelter

Governor Rick Snyder is facing a lot of big problems as the state of Michigan continues to flounder on several fronts. Its overall unemployment rates remain above national averages, hovering around 9%, but several of its cities are faring much worse. In Detroit, foreclosures dropped by 31% in 2011, but remain at a rate of more than 2.5 times the national average. Foreclosed homes in Detroit sell for, on average, just over $11,000, compared to a statewide average of $85,000, according to RealtyTrac.

Plans for deploying a nationwide interoperable wireless network for public safety use has taken a big step forward. On Feb. 22, President Obama signed the payroll tax cut extension bill that includes provisions for this long-awaited network and sets aside the 700 MHz D Block for public safety use, according to this article in WirelessWeek.

It’s refreshing to see government leaders make an effort to implement major changes based on past lapses. I just read this article from Homeland Security NewsWire about New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s proposed changes to the state’s emergency response system.

Facial recognition technology has been all over the news in recent weeks. In Canada, the Privacy Commissioner, Elizabeth Denham, ordered that the Insurance Corporation of B.C. (ICBC) stop providing police with information from its facial recognition database, according to this article from the Times Colonist.

By William Tucker

In 2006, a professor at National Autonomous University of Mexico claims he was recruited by officials from the Cuban Embassy in Mexico to lead a group of hackers to attack the U.S. Instead of following through, the professor recruited a few students to infiltrate the hacking group to better understand how they operate.

By William Tucker About mid-June 2010, a small computer security company in Belarus discovered a new piece of malware…

A Mineola-based database company, Safe Banking Systems, has uncovered information that six men suspected of, or convicted of crimes…

The Department of Homeland Security has been given the go-ahead to hire up to 1,000 new cybersecurity pros over…