Common Alerting Protocol (CAP)

by OASIS

The Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) is a simple but general format for exchanging all-hazard emergency alerts and public warnings over all kinds of networks. CAP allows a consistent warning message to be disseminated simultaneously over many different warning systems, thus increasing warning effectiveness while simplifying the warning task. CAP also facilitates the detection of emerging patterns in local warnings of various kinds, such as might indicate an undetected hazard or hostile act.

Website Documentation Example Contact

Assessment

Open License No
Transferable to Other Jurisdictions Yes

CAP was designed to be used internationally, and does not require data specific to any jurisdiction
Stakeholder Participation Yes

The technical working group for CAP consists of members of the emergency management and response community
Consensus-Based Governance No

No method for contribution
Extensions Yes

Extensibility was one of the main requirements when designing the standard. Countries have created their own variations of CAP, such as CAP Canadian Profile, which addresses Canadian needs such as bilingualism and Canadian geocoding
Human Readable Yes

Data values are not coded and entries contain plaintext descriptions
Machine Readable Yes

XML schema
Requires Up-To-Date / Real-Time Data Yes

Feeds are headed by an http request timestamp
Metadata Yes

Header contains metadata such as alerting.net namespace and Atom syndication format

Details

Development stage: Completed
Version: 1.2
License: Copyright OASIS
Level of use: Used by public alerting agencies worldwide, and many countries have developed variations on the standard specific to their needs. The International Telecommunications Union has named CAP as a recommended format for exchanging all-hazard emergency alerts since 2007
Applications: Many country-specific apps. Google has a CAP library on GitHub and a CAP validator app at: http://cap-validator.appspot.com/
About the publisher: OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) is a nonprofit organization that develops and promotes the use of standards in the a wide range of fields. The non-profit Partnership for Public Warning sponsored the CAP submission to the OASIS standards process
Updated by publisher: June 1, 2010
Added to directory: June 19, 2017

Data Providers (21)

Australian Emergency Management
Canadian National Public Alerting System
Canadian Public Safety Operations Organization
Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission
German Office for Citizen Protection and Disaster Support
Italian Ministry of the Interior
Italian National Fire Corps
Maldives National Disaster Management Center
Myanmar Department of Meteorology and Hydrology
Pacific Disaster Center
Phillipine Atmospheric, Geophysical & Astronomical Services Administration
South Africa
Sri Lanka
Thailand National Disaster Warning Center
US Department of Homeland Security
US Federal Communications Commission
US Federal Emergency Management Agency
US Law Enforcement Agencies
US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Vietnam Disaster Management Center
World Meteorological Organization World Weather Information Service

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