is a coalition of federal, state, and local government organizations, federally-funded research and development centers (FFRDC), and supporting private industry partners who are involved with geospatial issues related to Homeland Security (HLS), Homeland Defense (HD), Civil Support (CS), and Emergency Preparedness and Response (EP&R). Within these broad mission areas, HIFLD members are involved in a wide range of different functions including: Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP), Crisis and Consequence Management, Intelligence and Threat Analysis, Antiterrorism/Force Protection (AT/FP), Defense Support to Civil Authorities (DSCA), Man-Made and Natural Hazard Modeling, and Government Facilities Management.

The HIFLD Working Group is co-sponsored by the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense & Americas' Security Affairs--OASD(HD&ASA), the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) National Protection & Programs Directorate (NPPD), and the U.S Geological Survey (USGS). Among these, OASD(HD&ASA) has responsibility for all DoD Homeland Defense, CIP, CS, EP&R, and domestic Crisis Management activities, and is the principle DoD interface with DHS. NGA's mission is to provide timely, relevant, and accurate Geospatial Intelligence (GEOINT) in support of National Security. This includes provision of GEOINT to the HLS/HD Community for situational awareness, critical infrastructure analysis and protection, threat and vulnerability analysis, and hazard modeling and consequence assessment. The DHS National Protection & Programs Directorate (NPPD) works with federal, state, local, and private sector Homeland Security partners to identify threats, determine vulnerabilities, and allocate resources where risk is greatest, thereby safeguarding our Nation's infrastructure. The USGS serves the Nation by providing reliable scientific and geospatial information to describe and understand the Earth; minimize loss of life and property from natural disasters; manage water, biological, energy, and mineral resources; and enhance and protect our quality of life.

HIFLD also receives strong support from the United States Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) and the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Mission Assurance Division (MAD), among many other organizations--with the common goal of promoting domestic infrastructure geospatial information sharing and protection, as well as knowledge management among the HIFLD membership at large.

HIFLD Working Group meetings are held on a bi-monthly basis. They focus primarily on different national-level and defense critical infrastructure sectors on a rotating schedule. Issues addressed by the HIFLD Working Group include the identification of authoritative homeland infrastructure geospatial data sources, acquisition of this authoritative data for common use by the HD/HLS Community, and a variety of other structural/governance themes related to geospatial information. These include, but are not limited to, data standards, symbology, enterprise architecture schemes, information exchange and protection, and the production of recommendations on other policy-related issues.

HIFLD Working Group sessions and communications are kept, to the greatest extent possible, at the Unclassified // For Official Use Only (FOUO) level in order to encourage active participation by state and local entities with significant HLS/HD interests. Parallel sessions and communications at SECRET or higher levels are conducted as necessary.