One of the key successes of homeland security information sharing has been the formation and maturation of the National Information Exchange Model (NIEM), a community-driven approach to defining the definitions by which data can be shared among systems and organizations.

NIEM uses the XML standard to define the content of messages being exchanged. It’s about the data and how it’s structured. Users can also take advantage of tools that implement the Unified Modeling Language profile for NIEM, which generates XML and provides a business-oriented understanding of the exchange.

NIEM was an outgrowth of efforts that began in the justice and law enforcement community more than a decade ago and today it supports government exchange efforts in more than a dozen diverse communities, such as international trade, maritime, and health and human services.

All 50 states and at least 16 federal agencies have implemented or are considering solutions that use NIEM. It can benefit everything the government does and should be considered part of the solution to improving federal data transparency.

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