11 February 2015. The  Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC®) announces that it has adopted the OGC Unified Geo Data Reference Model For Law Enforcement and Public Safety as an OGC Best Practice.

This OGC Best Practice provides guidance for law enforcement, civil security and public safety organizations developing applications from mobile to enterprise systems that require communication and data sharing between many, often geographically distributed organizations. The Best Practice defines a data model for encoding spatially enabled law enforcement and public safety data. The ability to easily and effectively share law enforcement and public safety data across jurisdictional and national boundaries is a critical international need. While there are numerous widely used and excellent national systems for sharing law enforcement data, there are currently no internationally agreed to standards for sharing spatially enabled law enforcement and public safety data. This OGC Best Practice represents a major step forward and provides an opportunity for many organizations to collaboratively define an international standard.

Since 1994, emergency and disaster planning, early warning, prevention, response and recovery have been the focus of many different geospatial standards efforts in the OGC. Hundreds of companies, government agencies, universities, research organizations other standards organizations have been involved. This OGC Best Practice reflects the wisdom gained through that ongoing work and also the commitment and expertise of OGC members whose recommendations reflect current trends in information technology.

Major Mohammed Saleh Al Mansoori Head of UAE MOI GIS Center for Security in Abu Dhabi Police GHQ said, "The development of The Unified Geo-Data Reference Mode (UGDRM) for LEAPS was the result of continuous work undertaken since 2010.The Technical development and efforts included various staff, experts and organizations. The UGDRM is a reference for organizations working in the Geospatial community and LEAPS."

“With as much as 90% of law enforcement and public safety data having location content, it's essential for fixed and mobile users to be able to easily share this data. As a provider of location-enabled information systems globally and as co-chair of the Law Enforcement and Public Safety Domain Working Group, we see tremendous value in Abu Dhabi Police’s OGC approved best practice data model,” said Roger Mann, Lockheed Martin Information Systems & Global Solution's Managing Director - Middle East.

The OGC Unified Geo Data Reference Model For Law Enforcement and Public Safety is free and available online at  http://docs.opengeospatial.org/bp/14-106/14-106.html.

The OGC is an international consortium of more than 500 companies, government agencies, research organizations, and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available geospatial standards. OGC standards support interoperable solutions that "geo-enable" the Web, wireless and location-based services, and mainstream IT. OGC standards empower technology developers to make geospatial information and services accessible and useful with any application that needs to be geospatially enabled. Visit the OGC website at  http://www.opengeospatial.org/contact