In developed countries some 80% or more of people carry a mobile phone, and the police or paramedics often use them to identify victims at road traffic accidents or other incidents. The idea of ICE is that everyone should put an emergency contact name and number into their phone under the headword "ICE". This would give the emergency services personnel a standard place to look.

Following research carried out by Vodafone that showed that fewer than 25% of people carry any details of who they would like telephoned following a serious accident, a campaign encouraging people to do this was started in May 2005 by Bob Brotchie of the East Anglian Ambulance Service in the UK. The idea has taken off since the bomb attacks in London on 7 July 2005.