911 Trust Ledger Foundation

Building the Trust Fabric for America’s 911 Data

“Trust is the invisible network behind every call for help. The moment that trust fails, everything else does too.”

1. Introduction

Every day, across the United States, thousands of 911 calls are made — and each one is a test of trust.

Trust that the call will route correctly. 

Trust that location data is accurate.

Trust that systems will work together when seconds matter most.

Behind that trust lies an invisible digital ecosystem — dozens of independent systems and vendors, each passing critical pieces of information between them. Every event leaves behind digital fingerprints: timestamps, routing decisions, CAD updates, recordings, and responder logs. Together, these fragments tell the story of what happened when someone called for help.

And yet, there is no single, verifiable record of that story.

The 911 Trust Ledger Foundation (911TL) was created to close this gap — not by rebuilding 911, but by giving it a foundation of verifiable trust.

Our mission is simple: to make every piece of 911 data provable, auditable, and shareable — without compromising privacy, performance, or control.

911TL is not a product or a vendor. It’s a foundation and an open technology protocol that anyone in public safety can build on. Just as the Internet connected information and GPS connected location, the 911 Trust Ledger connects trust across every link in the emergency-response chain.

2. The Problem: Fragmented Trust in Public-Safety Data

For most of its history, the 911 system has relied on cooperation rather than verification.

Carriers, service providers, PSAPs, CAD vendors, and radio networks depend on one another — yet no mechanism exists to independently prove what happened once data moves between systems.

When 911 was local and analog, that was fine. But as Next Generation 911 (NG911) moves call handling, location, and data exchange into digital networks, the old assumptions no longer hold.

Today, every call for help touches multiple systems:

• Carriers generate call-origin and location data.

• ESInets and 911 Service Providers route calls and manage transfers.

• PSAPs receive, log, and dispatch events.

• Vendors capture recordings and analytics.

Each keeps its own record — but none can guarantee that their version matches another’s.  Every investigation or audit starts from scratch. Data is exported, compared, and debated manually. Even small timestamp mismatches can make cause-and-effect impossible to prove.

As artificial intelligence, predictive analytics, and data-sharing initiatives accelerate, the absence of verifiable provenance becomes a systemic risk.  Without proof of what happened, when, and who validated it, modernization risks outrunning trust.

3. Current Approaches and Their Limitations

Public safety has made major strides in digitization and interoperability — yet none of the current approaches fully solve the trust problem.

Centralized Logging and Warehousing

State or vendor-hosted data lakes improve accessibility, but they introduce a single point of failure: whoever controls the database controls the narrative. Logs can be altered, and reconciling differences between systems still requires manual effort. Centralization brings visibility, not verifiability.

Public Key Infrastructure (PKI)

PKI allows agencies to sign data with digital certificates — a strong tool for authenticity but cumbersome at scale. Each participant must rely on a central certificate authority, and managing keys across hundreds of agencies is labor-intensive. PKI ensures authenticity, not shared consensus.

API-Based Data Exchange

Standards like NENA i3 and EIDO improve interoperability but not trust. APIs move data efficiently, yet they assume that each system’s data is already correct. They transport information; they don’t certify it.

Blockchain Pilots

Some pilots use public blockchains for audit logging, but those networks lack privacy controls and local governance. The idea — immutable, shared records — is sound. The problem is that the underlying infrastructure must be permissioned, private, and governed by the public-safety community itself.

Summary

Existing tools increase transparency but not proof.  911 needs a trust layer that is verifiable by design, collaborative by nature, and governed in the public interest.

4. The 911 Trust Ledger Solution

911 Trust Ledger (911TL) provides that missing layer.

911TL is an open, permissioned network that records cryptographic proofs of key 911 events — who created data, when it was shared, and who verified it. Instead of one organization holding the truth, multiple trusted participants collectively maintain it.

Every critical event in the 911 workflow — call received, location resolved, call routed, PSAP answer, dispatch created, incident closed — generates a verifiable entry on the ledger. That entry stores only a hash (a cryptographic fingerprint) and digital signatures from the systems involved, not the underlying private data.

This creates a chain of custody for information:

• Each organization signs what it contributes.

• Each transaction is timestamped and validated by peers.

• Once recorded, entries cannot be altered without detection.

The result is an immutable, cross-agency audit trail that complements existing systems rather than replacing them — a neutral layer of proof that sits beneath the entire 911 ecosystem.

5. How the Foundation Works

The 911 Trust Ledger Foundation serves as the neutral steward of this public-trust infrastructure. Its mission is to ensure that the network remains open, transparent, and community-governed.

The Foundation fulfills three essential roles:

1. Governance — Defines participation, privacy, and consensus policies.

2. Technology Stewardship — Maintains open-source codebases, documentation, and independent security audits.

3. Ecosystem Development — Coordinates collaboration among 911 authorities, service providers, and technology partners.

The Foundation does not sell software or commercialize data. Its independence ensures that no single vendor, carrier, or agency controls the ledger.  Participation is voluntary, contributions are public, and governance is shared — modeled after the Linux Foundation and the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).

The Foundation keeps 911TL a commons, not a commodity.

6. How the Technology Works

911TL is built on an open-source blockchain framework governed by the Linux Foundation. Think of it less as cryptocurrency and more as a shared logbook — one that multiple organizations maintain together, where every entry is time-stamped, signed, and verified by consensus.

Key Design Principles

• Permissioned Membership: Only verified participants — PSAPs, service providers, vendors, and state authorities — can join. Each holds a cryptographic identity issued by the Foundation.

• Channels for Privacy: Each regional network operates its own ledger channel, preserving local control while enabling national interoperability.

• Private Data Collections: Personally identifiable or sensitive information stays within existing systems. Only hash proofs are recorded publicly.

• Endorsement Policies: Transactions require multiple digital signatures (for example, both the NGCS and PSAP) before confirmation.

• Consensus Ordering: Entries are confirmed collectively, preventing any single participant from rewriting history.

Together, these components allow 911TL to combine trustworthiness, privacy, and performance — delivering verifiable integrity for mission-critical data without exposing what must remain confidential.

7. Why 911TL Is a Better Solution

911TL bridges the best features of existing tools into one cohesive framework.

In short, 911TL doesn’t store the data — it stores the proof.  And in public safety, proof is the highest form of trust.

8. Implementation and Roadmap

Adopting a new trust framework requires both technical maturity and cultural readiness. The Foundation approaches rollout as a gradual, collaborative process — built to prove value through openness and interoperability.

Phase 1: Establish the Core Infrastructure

Launch limited-scope networks that demonstrate:

• Event notarization without operational disruption.

• Cross-system endorsement with measurable efficiency gains.

• Verifiable audit records that enhance confidence and compliance.

  
  

  

Phase 2: Build the Ecosystem

Expand participation across jurisdictions as agencies form their own “trust channels.” The Foundation publishes open APIs, schema definitions, and reference implementations to accelerate adoption by vendors and integrators.

Phase 3: Scale Through Standards and Community

The long-term goal is not one network, but an ecosystem of interoperable trust fabrics spanning states and service boundaries.  Through partnership with standards bodies and industry groups, the Foundation aligns governance, interoperability profiles, and certification frameworks.

Phase 4: Continuous Improvement

As an open system, 911TL evolves through its community. Shared governance enables ongoing enhancements in privacy, analytics, and resilience.  Every new participant strengthens the network; every improvement contributes to the public good.

The 911 Trust Ledger Foundation’s roadmap is not about a single project — it’s about building momentum toward a future where verifiable trust is a standard feature of public safety. Each step is designed to be open, interoperable, and self-reinforcing, ensuring that the path to adoption is as trustworthy as the data it protects.

9. Risk and Compliance

Public safety agencies and service providers face growing operational and legal exposure as public safety data becomes fully digital. The integrity of that data — and the ability to prove it — now defines both compliance and liability.

The 911 Trust Ledger introduces a verifiable chain of custody for public safety metadata. Each participating system generates a cryptographic proof and timestamp, creating an immutable, tamper-evident record that supports both auditability and legal defensibility.

Compliance Advantages

Audit Readiness: Unified, verifiable records simplify incident reconstruction and oversight.

Regulatory Alignment: Supports NENA i3, EIDO, and state reporting requirements through verifiable provenance.

Data Integrity Assurance: Immutable hashes prevent undetected alteration or deletion.

Risk Reduction

PSAPs – Reduce liability through provable logs and transparent incident trails.

Service Providers – Share accountability and limit dispute risk with neutral, validated records.

Vendors & Agencies – Enhance compliance and public confidence with verifiable evidence of system performance.

The Result

A more resilient, transparent, and legally defensible public-safety data ecosystem — where trust isn’t assumed, it’s proven.

“In an environment where every second counts, confidence in the data should be absolute. The 911 Trust Ledger makes that confidence verifiable.”

10. The Broader Impact

When public safety data becomes verifiable, everything built on top of it becomes stronger.

• Accountability: Every data handoff is provable, reducing disputes and audit time.

• Resilience: Verified data can be reconstructed even if a local system fails.

• Innovation: AI and analytics can safely rely on data with known provenance.

• Transparency: Agencies can demonstrate integrity to regulators and the public without exposing sensitive information.

911TL transforms trust into infrastructure — measurable, auditable, and interoperable. Just as HTTPS became the foundation of secure communication online, 911TL can become the foundation of trustworthy communication in public safety.

11. Conclusion

Technology alone doesn’t build trust — people and institutions do. But technology can prove that trust was earned.

The 911 Trust Ledger Foundation ensures that every piece of public-safety data carries evidence of integrity. It gives responders, policymakers, and the public confidence that when help is needed most, the systems they rely on are transparent, resilient, and accountable.

This isn’t blockchain for its own sake. It’s about the quiet architecture of confidence — the proof beneath the promise that when you call 911, someone will answer, and the truth of that call will always be preserved.

“Public safety runs on trust. Let’s make that trust verifiable.”