deployments. She said there are “Static 205s” for agencies that should be reviewed for the
name change recommendations and how talk groups would be assignments during
events. She said clear guidelines to avoid operational challenges were especially
important when AES encryption is involved. Ms. Zerwin said before letters to agencies
with current access to the system went out from ETSB she wanted guidance in the policy
to ensure that deployment was consistent in the future no matter who was on the PAC.
She talked about the other policies for
a special use cases, including MERIT, and
access by schools within the DEDIR System, NShe said a second round of letters did not
need to go out right away but recommended establishing criteria for evaluating future
applications consistently. She said changes to the talk group structure would need a clear
process to avoid conflicting with PSAP operational processes and the guidance should
reflect this to ensure consistency.
Ms. Zerwin reviewed a memorandum with recommendations, including creating written
guidelines to support long-term consistency and revised Memorandum of Understanding
(MOU). She said Grundy County used fillable forms to collect encryption-related
information and said something similar could work for DuPage.
She said ETSB has some agencies waiting to finalize access requests based on these
policy adjustments and that it was possible final changes would not be ready by May.
Chair Selvik asked about the timeline for resolving these issues. Ms. Zerwin said the next
step was reviewing which agencies currently had encryption keys and identifying if any
were missed earlier. She said agreements were already in place with those agencies, but
cleanup might be needed. She said PAC should make policy changes before letters were
sent out and said the letters would explain the process for agencies as encryption was
introduced.
Chair Selvik asked if PAC approval was needed to collect final encryption keys from
agencies not already included. He also asked if the memorandums and recommendations
from Mr. Connolly should go to the Police and Fire Focus Groups or stay with the
committee. He asked whether Static 205 instructions should be unified or separate for
police and fire and whether to send the issue back to the focus groups.
Ms. Zerwin deferred to Members Burmeister and Benjamin and said she would rely on
them for input, since practices could vary by agency and PSAP. Member Burmeister said
that police and fire operations would likely be quite different due to mutual aid
differences. He said this would not cause major problems for training. Member Benjamin
said the topic was better suited for focus groups. He asked if the DUCALL talk group
was in use and whether agencies had access to it. Member Burmeister said his consoles
did not. Member Benjamin said he had not had enough time to review the issue in full.
He said only manager consoles could patch channels and that telecommunicators could
not. He said the issue was not ready for a decision and should go to the focus groups.
Chair Selvik asked if the direction everyone was thinking was to bring the matter back to
the focus groups. Member Burmeister responded, yes.
Chair Selvik recognized Mr. Connolly. Mr. Connolly said the topic had been discussed
for five years and that opinions had changed. He said police wanted encryption for officer
safety, while fire departments had different needs. He said a split approach could work,
