NGA Delivers App for Maps

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) now delivers unclassified geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) to verified government users via an application for tablets and mobile devices. Tearline, available though the Apple App Store and Google Play, is open to the intelligence community, U.S. Defense Department, allies, and academic and private sector partners sponsored into the system.

NGA’s GEOINT Pathfinder project developed the app. The shell is delivered from the app stores, but from that point, users need credentials to access secure servers.

Chris Rasmussen, NGA public software development and project lead, explains that Tearline answers intelligence questions using only unclassified tools, data, information technology and services available in the commercial and open source world.

“We built and launched the Tearline platform not only to address the commercialization of GEOINT but also to deliver high-quality, original content around the clock to senior officials, whether drinking coffee at home in the morning, waiting at the airport or driving around town,” Rasmussen explains.

Because security clearances were not a prerequisite to joining the Pathfinder team, the team was able to use diverse talent pools to create Tearline. For example, an intern from Thomas Jefferson High School, located in Northern Virginia near NGA’s headquarters, coded the Android app.

“As GEOINT shifts toward a more unclassified data future, NGA has an opportunity to tell more stories at the protected yet unclassified level,” Rasmussen relates.

Interested contributors and readers from the Defense Department, intelligence community and partner nations should email oss@nga.mil for login instructions.