SAFECOM—a public safety communications advisory body to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency—and the National Council of Statewide Interoperability Coordinators have released a white paper that provides information about the possibility of integrating global positioning system capabilities into Project 25 land mobile radio systems used by public safety practitioners.
The two organizations said in the white paper, which was released Friday, that while GPS was once a source of concern regarding privacy, it has since demonstrated its capabilities in life-saving situations, providing situational awareness during planned activities and emergency scenarios.
The paper, titled “Global Positioning System for Public Safety Location Services: Use Cases and Best Practice,” describes case studies that illustrate how GPS can be made to work with P25 LMR systems.
SAFECOM and NCSWIC do put forward a few considerations organizations should address before acquiring GPS capabilities for integration into LMR. These considerations include determining the type of GPS service one’s system can accommodate and ensuring the protection of GPS data.
