Standards Activities - Working together toward common solutions for Public Safety Communications

As an American National Standards Institute (ANSI)-accredited Standards Developer (ASD), APCO International is dedicated to ensuring public safety communications has a role in the development of standards that affect our industry. APCO’s standards development activities have a broad scope, ranging from the actual development of standards to the representation of public safety communications in other standards development areas.

The Standards Process When an area of need is identified, the standards development  process begins with a proposal for a new standard.  This proposal is presented to APCO’s Standards Development Committee (SDC) for consideration. If approved, a project initiation form is completed and submitted to ANSI.  At this point, a workgroup is identified to research and write the content of the standard. Once written, the candidate standard is reviewed by the SDC and moves forward to public review and comment.  During this phase, anyone with an interest is encouraged to submit comments on the proposed standard. All comments will be considered and a response generated.  Upon completion, a consensus vote by the SDC is conducted and the candidate standard is submitted to ANSI for approval as a standard.

APCO represents its members and public safety communications on the following ANSI Standards Panels: Homeland Security Standards Panel (HSSP), Healthcare Information Technology Standards Panel (HITSP), and Identity Theft Prevention and Identity Management Standards Panel (IDSP)