Information Protection office helps keep technology strong, provides advantage on battlefield

  • Published
  • By Karen Abeyasekere
  • 100th Air Refueling Wing Public Affairs
RAF MILDENHALL, England --  One year ago, in a move directed by the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, information protection offices were moved from security forces squadrons and realigned to fall under the 'umbrella' of wing staffs.

"A great number of people don't really know what information protection is all about, but they are familiar with the functions we do," said Chris Johnson, 100th Air Refueling Wing information Protection chief.

When information protection was set up a year ago, some of the well-established functions that used to belong to security forces were cut.

According to Mr. Johnson, that included information security (protection of collateral, classified information and safes); personnel security (anything to do with security clearances), and industrial security (deals with the oversight of contractors working for the Air Force here who handle or deal with classified information, in order to fulfill their contractual requirements.

"On top of that, they gave us the new function of information protection, which people probably don't know as much about," he said. "The function is unique - it concentrates on protecting all types of information we handle here in the (100th ARW), focusing on the specific information that needs protecting.

"That could be classified - which is already protected - or many different forms of unclassified information," he added, and said that includes privacy act and for-official-use-only information.

"We coordinate with other wing functions that do this, and try bringing them closer together," Mr. Johnson said. "We work very closely with operation security, information assurance, knowledge operations, and public affairs (for public release)."

No longer part of security forces, the information protection office - a staff of just four Department of Defense civilians - are their own entity, working directly for the vice wing commander.

"This is an Air Force initiative; top-level leadership realized protecting information was really important," he said. "They've spent lots of money, time and effort to make our technology strong so it gives us an advantage on the battlefield. By not taking care of sensitive information properly, we could lose that huge advantage.

Mr. Johnson went on to say that the Air Force realized as a whole Air Force enterprise, we need to be better about how we handle and control information.

"If people see things that concern them about the way sensitive information is handled on this base - whatever it is, if it doesn't look right - report it to either the functional area that deals with that issue, or contact us," he said.

Usually, where classified information is concerned, people tend to know what is right and wrong. As far as unclassified information goes, if you see something which doesn't look right but you're not sure what to do - such as coming across a list of social security numbers in the trash, or coming across information written on social networking sites that you think shouldn't be there, contact the information protection office immediately.

"The whole 'IP concept' is still in its infancy, and we're still working on how to make it work effectively for the Air Force. It's going to take a while for it to really become part of the Air Force culture and get it integrated completely into the mission, but up at the highest level in the Air Force, people are working hard to make this a reality," Mr. Johnson said.

What to Know: According to Information Protection Concept of Operations, dated July 1, 2008, "The goal of information protection is to prevent the compromise, loss, unauthorized access or disclosure, destruction, distortion or non-accessibility of information, regardless of physical form or characteristics, over the life cycle of the information, including actions to regulate access to sensitive information, controlled unclassified information produced by, entrusted to or under the control of the U.S. Government."

For more information, or to contact the information protection office, call 238-3105, or e-mail 100arw/ip@mildenhall.af.mil.