Building information for emergency responders

This paper describes a methodology for controlling access to building information to approved external entities such as police, fire and public safety officials. Building automation systems frequently monitor critical building information, including the status of alarms, locations of occupants, thermal and air quality conditions that could be extremely useful to emergency responders and incident commanders in the event of a building emergency. Therefore, it is desirable to provide a mechanism to enable public safety officials to access this building information, while at the same time preventing unauthorized access and use of the information. The methodology developed to provide this functionality includes a building information and control system (BISACS) server, and standardized data modeling of the building automation system (BAS) using enhancements to the BACnet protocol. The description includes the requirements for the underlying information models, components, interfaces and functionality to provide secure remote access to building information to authorized users.