Public safety organisations representing members in, Canada, the European Union, United Kingdom, and the United States signed a first-of-its-kind agreement on 4th November 2019 to work together to improve the emergency communications systems that serve nearly one billion people worldwide.
Under the pact, known as the Collaborative Coalition for International Public Safety CC:IPS, the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials, Canada (APCO Canada), the European Emergency Number Association (EENA), the British Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials (BAPCO), and NENA: The 9-1-1 Association pledge to promote, support and improve emergency communications services utilising the most current and commonly accepted technologies, standards, and best practices. More recently, the coalition has grown to include, amongst others, the National Emergency Communications Working Group – Australia & New Zealand (NECWG-A/NZ) and the Organisation of American States which brings together all 35 independent states of the Americas.
Specifically, the groups have committed themselves to promote, among a wide range of topics, Next Generation emergency communications, services, networks and systems such as the i3 standard for NG9-1-1 in North America and the NG1-1-2 standard in Europe. Under these frameworks, calls for emergency help are handled in a modern, Internet Protocol-based multimedia environment, as opposed to the voice- and landline-centric frameworks of the past.
Back in November 2019, the four founding members had the following to say about the formation of CC:IPS. Since then, the collaboration has grown significantly in terms of breadth of geography and particpation.