For decades, public safety data has lived in silos: CAD here, RMS there, jail and court data somewhere else, and dozens of external systems orbiting on their own timelines. This fragmentation shaped how agencies responded, how fast they could react, and what they could understand about an incident or an investigation. What used to be an inconvenience is now a crisis.

Public safety is standing at the same inflection point that cybersecurity reached a decade ago. Back then, the cybersecurity industry realized that no product could succeed without open APIs. Customers demanded control over their data and insisted that tools integrate, communicate, and automate. Vendors who refused were left behind.

Today, the same shift is urgently needed in public safety.

Agencies are drowning in data. Incidents are more complex. Digital evidence is exploding. New tools emerge every year. Staffing is strained. And yet, the industry still relies heavily on outdated interfaces, proprietary data pathways, and brittle integrations that cannot scale to meet real-time operational demands.

If public safety is going to meet the challenges ahead; and take advantage of the innovations already here, then modern, secure, scalable, real-time APIs must become the standard, not the exception.

The Data Explosion Is Here — And It’s Accelerating

Every year, public safety agencies ingest more digital information than the year before. Not just incremental growth, but exponential expansion. Body-worn cameras, license plate readers, citizen-submitted video, IoT sensors, smart home alerts, school safety systems, and digital forensics tools are producing a torrent of information, and most of it arrives in real time.

These systems weren’t designed to live in isolation, yet that's exactly how they’re often deployed. Each feeds important operational data into a different silo, leaving agencies to manually connect dots between tools that were never built to work together. As data volumes grow, this model becomes unsustainable. Agencies simply cannot slow down response or investigation cycles while they wait for data to be exported, reviewed, or stitched together manually. The more manual the process, the greater the risk of errors, inconsistency, and operational breakdowns.

This is why the foundation of the next evolution in public safety must be modern, open APIs that allow information to flow in real time, securely, and with full agency control.

A Lesson from Cybersecurity: Open APIs Unlocked an Entire Industry

Ten years ago, cybersecurity faced the same problem. Tools proliferated, data grew faster than teams could manage, and threats evolved far more quickly than legacy systems. The industry learned that without open APIs, nothing could interoperate, nothing could scale, and teams could not automate the workflows needed to stay ahead. The market, not the vendors, forced the shift. Enterprises refused to buy systems unless they shipped with fully documented, modern APIs.

Innovation skyrocketed. Automation became normal. New companies emerged, integrations multiplied, and customers retained real control over their data. Global companies can take billions of alerts and automate them down into a small number of active incidents for their staff to action. 

Public safety is poised for the same transformation. The volume of data, staffing limitations, and real-time operational needs all point to one conclusion: modern APIs are the only viable path forward.

Why Legacy Interfaces Are No Longer Enough

Many vendors claim they have APIs, but agencies know the difference between legacy “interfaces” and truly modern, real-time systems. Traditional interfaces often require batch transfers or manual pulls using outdated data tools. They break under heavy data loads, limit what information can move, and cannot support the automation agencies desperately need. Some systems still export only flat files or nightly batches, which is entirely incompatible with the realities of real-time response.

A real public safety API must be secure, documented, scalable, and capable of delivering data instantly. It should operate bi-directionally, support multiple use cases, and handle modern volumes without performance issues. Anything less is not an API,  it is simply a modern-looking wrapper around an outdated data pipeline.

Understanding What an API Actually Is (And Why That Matters) 

While the term “API” is now used in nearly every vendor presentation, many public safety leaders have never been shown what an API really is. In simple terms, an API is a structured doorway that allows two systems to exchange data quickly, securely, and consistently. A proper API follows modern standards like REST or event-driven webhooks, supports real-time data flow, and is built to scale as operational demand increases.

But in public safety, many vendors use “API” as a marketing term rather than a technical one. What agencies often receive is not a true API at all, it is a digital wrapper around old database queries, limited endpoints that expose only a small subset of the data, or batch jobs disguised as integration tools. These systems cannot support automation, cannot operate in real time, require a lot of maintenance, add cost, and cannot give agencies the interoperability they were promised.

Public safety decision-makers do not need deep technical expertise to evaluate this. They only need to ask:

“Does this API allow my data to move securely, instantly, and without vendor restrictions?”

If the answer is anything but yes, it is not an API that will serve the needs of modern policing.

Why Automation Is the Only Path Forward

There is simply too much data for agencies to manage manually. Even well-staffed departments cannot keep pace with the volume of video, records, sensor alerts, and digital evidence now flowing into their workloads.

Modern APIs unlock a future where agencies can automate repetitive tasks, filter and enrich incoming data, and route information to the right people at the right time. Instead of manually reviewing endless data streams, agencies can let machines handle the repetitive, time-sensitive tasks while officers and analysts focus on judgment, communication, and complex decision-making.

Automation is not optional, it is the only sustainable way forward.

Data Ownership Must Stay with the Agency

No matter how modern the technology becomes, one principle must remain constant: public safety agencies must be the owners and arbiters of their own data.

Agencies need full control over:

• how their data moves,
• where it flows,
• who has access,
• and how it is used across systems.

Vendor lock-in is the single biggest threat to innovation in public safety. When one platform controls all data, agencies lose the ability to adopt new tools, integrate emerging solutions, or meet evolving community expectations. Modern APIs protect against this. They create a healthy ecosystem where agencies can choose the tools that best meet their needs, not the ones a particular vendor dictates.

ForceMetrics’ Journey: Built in the Absence of APIs

When ForceMetrics launched in 2020, the public safety ecosystem had almost no true APIs. Nearly every integration involved legacy CAD and RMS systems that were never designed for operational analytics or real-time data access. We had to build pipelines capable of ingesting massive amounts of data from systems that were slow, rigid, or undocumented.

We designed Velocity™ to normalize inconsistent data, scale across millions of records, and deliver real-time insight even when the underlying systems were decades old. Over the years, more vendors have begun offering APIs, which is an encouraging trend, but many of these new APIs are still limited, not real-time, or not built for automation.

Progress is happening, but not fast enough.

Public safety needs the same API revolution that cybersecurity experienced, and it needs it now.

A Call to Action: Open, Scalable APIs Must Be the New Standard

If public safety is going to innovate at the speed communities expect, the entire industry must embrace a simple standard:

No public safety system should be purchased without a modern, open, scalable, secure API.

This must be the expectation for every vendor, every integrator, every new entrant, and every procurement team. Agencies deserve control over their data. Communities deserve modern, connected public safety tools. And innovators deserve an ecosystem where new solutions can plug in seamlessly.

Modern APIs are how we make all of that possible.

Conclusion: Building the Foundation for the Next Decade of Public Safety

The next era of public safety will be defined by interoperability, automation, and real-time context. Agencies will need to connect systems that were never designed to work together, orchestrate workflows across dozens of tools, and respond to incidents supported by the full picture, not fragments.

Open, scalable, secure APIs make all of this possible. They are the foundation for safer interactions, faster investigations, smarter dispatch, and more resilient communities.

ForceMetrics is committed to pushing this future forward. But this shift depends on all of us, agencies, vendors, innovators, and community partners, choosing an open, modern, interoperable path.

Because the next generation of life-saving technology will only be possible if we build it on open, real-time, secure foundations.

Visit our Contact page to get connect with our team and see ForceMetrics in action.