In 2007 the Maritime Safety Committee (MSC) of IMO, at its 83rd session, accepted an offer from the United States to design, build and operate, on an ad interim basis, the International LRIT International Data Exchange (IDE). It was agreed that after the ad interim period a permanent location should be found for the IDE.

At the 86th session of the MSC (May 2009) the International Mobile Satellite Organization (IMSO), in its role as the LRIT Coordinator, was tasked to issue a Request for Proposal for the establishment of the permanent IDE. On 25 September 2009 the LRIT Coordinator published a Request for Proposal (RFP) for the "Establishment, Operations and Maintenance of the permanent International LRIT Data Exchange".

During the 87th session of the MSC the European Union Member States submitted a proposal for the establishment, operation and maintenance of the IDE of the LRIT system by the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) in Lisbon, Portugal. EMSA became the IDE Operator in October 2011. 65 Data Centres worldwide (covering 117 Contracting Governments and Territories) currently use the IDE hosted at EMSA. The backup Disaster Recovery site remains with the US Coast Guard.