The Safety Investigation Authority, Finland ensures investigation teams can communicate, maintain situational awareness and document their work with Secapp.

© Safety Investigation Authority, Finland*

Rapid response, reliable information flow and secure documentation are essential to the success of the Safety Investigation Authority, Finland’s work. When an investigation team sets out to investigate an accident site, its members need to communicate securely, share a common view of the situation and document events, even while on the move and operating across a wide area.

Secapp is SIAF’s primary communications system for on-site investigations and investigation team work. It keeps information, the shared situation picture and investigation documents in a secure environment in Finland.

The Safety Investigation Authority, Finland (SIAF), known in Finnish as Onnettomuustutkintakeskus (OTKES), is the authority responsible for safety investigations. Its aim is to improve public safety through reliable investigations and safety recommendations. SIAF investigates serious accidents and incidents to learn from what happened and help prevent similar events in the future.

SIAF’s work can require a rapid response at any time of day. International legal obligations and the need to maintain the continuity of essential services mean that an investigation team must be ready to mobilise quickly, including at night.

If, for example, a main railway line or an airport runway is closed because of an accident, the start of the investigation also matters for resolving the wider disruption. The investigation must begin without delay, and the conditions needed to conduct it must be secured.

SIAF has a 24-hour on-call model, and investigation activities may need to begin outside office hours. Once the people needed for an on-site investigation have been reached, Secapp provides the investigation team with a secure environment for communicating and sharing up-to-date information quickly.

Secapp supports message acknowledgements and response tracking. The sender can see who has received the message and who has responded. This helps establish quickly whether the required team has been reached and whether the assignment is getting under way as planned.

SIAF uses Secapp to support on-site investigations. Fieldwork often takes place across a large area, where members of the investigation team need to communicate with one another securely and in real time. Staff at the office also need to stay informed about how the situation is developing.

Secapp enables secure communication among multiple people. The investigation team can discuss the situation, share information and assess hazards in one environment. This supports both the team in the field and the office staff maintaining a shared view of the situation.

“Situations can change quickly during an on-site investigation, and information cannot be left scattered across individual phone calls or notes. It is important to us that the investigation team and the office have a shared, secure way to exchange up-to-date information,” says Tiina Bieber, Communications Manager at SIAF.

In practice, Secapp serves as a shared communications channel for on-site investigations. The people involved can report observations, clarify tasks and share current information without communication becoming fragmented across separate channels. Whether the team is working outdoors, at an accident site or elsewhere on the move, information remains available on mobile devices and can be shared securely.

Secapp provides an environment where information can be shared in a controlled way among the people involved in the investigation.

SIAF also uses Secapp to maintain a shared situation picture. During an investigation, information comes from several sources and different people, making it important to bring observations, decisions and events together in one place.

Secapp can be used to maintain a situation log recording information about the progress of the investigation. This helps preserve the sequence of events, actions taken and key observations throughout the investigation. The Secapp mobile app can also work offline when needed, supporting work where data connectivity is unavailable.

The benefit of keeping the situation log in Secapp is that information does not remain scattered across individual messages, phone calls or notes. When the team’s communications, situation information and documentation are in the same system, it is easier to maintain an overall view even as events change quickly or several people work in different locations.

For office staff, this supports an up-to-date situation picture. Information from the field can be shared in a controlled manner, while the various stages of the investigation are documented for later review.

One important benefit for SIAF is the ability to store investigation forms, instructions and documents in Secapp. These include important forms used in interviews.

Previously, accessing such materials meant carrying a separate computer and searching for files in the middle of an investigation. With Secapp, the documents and forms needed for on-site work are easier to keep at hand and use as part of the investigation’s documentation.

Secapp’s document and file features support this practical work. With essential forms, instructions and investigation materials available in one system, the team does not have to search through separate folders or devices. This is particularly useful in the field, where using a computer may not always be practical. Secapp’s document and file features also work when the mobile device is offline.

For SIAF, Secapp is part of the way investigations are carried out in practice. The system combines the capabilities the team needs from the start of an investigation through to documentation.

SIAF uses Secapp in particular for:

• secure communication among the people involved in an investigation
• sharing a situation picture between the field and the office
• maintaining a situation log during the investigation
• storing investigation forms, instructions and documents
• documenting observations, hazard assessments and stages of the investigation

These capabilities are especially valuable in on-site investigations, where team members may be dispersed and new information emerges as the work progresses. Keeping communications, documents and the situation log in the same environment helps the team stay on top of a changing situation.

Information security and keeping data in Finland were especially important to SIAF when selecting Secapp. Investigation communications involve information that must remain reliably under control.

“The nature of investigation information means we must be able to trust how it is handled at every stage. That is why information security and keeping the data in Finland were key considerations for us,” Bieber says.

With Secapp, SIAF can share investigation information in a controlled way among people in different roles, the investigation team and the office. This is particularly important when an investigation involves several people working in different roles and locations.

SIAF has been very satisfied with Secapp. The move from its previous system to Secapp was quick, especially for investigation communications.

SIAF currently uses Secapp’s communication, documentation and situational awareness features. The organisation continues to consider how it could use Secapp more extensively.

“The transition from our previous system to Secapp happened quickly. We have been very pleased with it and are continually considering how we could use Secapp more widely,” Bieber says.

Janne Mylläri, Account Director at Secapp, sees SIAF’s use of the system as a good example of how Secapp can support demanding work across several stages of an investigation.

“SIAF’s use of Secapp shows how the system can support demanding operations as a whole. It provides secure communication, a situation log, information archiving and a shared situation picture for the field team and the office,” says Janne Mylläri, Account Director at Secapp.

For SIAF, communication, documentation and situational awareness need to work under pressure. When an investigation team mobilises, information must move securely and the right people must receive what they need quickly.

Secapp helps the team communicate in a secure environment and document the events of an investigation in the same system. In this way, Secapp supports SIAF’s ability to act when every second matters.