The United Nations Space Command Emergency Priority Order 098831A-1, otherwise known as the Cole Protocol, was a command enacted by Admiral Preston Cole to prevent the Covenant from finding the location of Earth or any other core world location. It was an order preventing Covenant retrieval of data that contained the location of Earth, and forbids retreating vessels from setting a direct slipspace course towards any human population center, as the Covenant were able to track Slipspace travel vectors and calculate the evacuating ship's destination. The policy also stated that to prevent capture, any UNSC or Human vessel, in the event of an emergency evacuation, was to self-destruct, after wiping all data matrices, to prevent the advance of the Covenant.