Verified Response: Coming To a Neighbourhood Near You!

Implementation Postponed. New date to be announced!

If a Verified Response program has not already been implemented by your local Police Service, then you best start preparing your staff, clients and the general public as many municipalities have implemented their version of VR with more jurisdictions in the first stages of announcing VR to save on costs and officer response.

CANASA was approached recently by the London Police Service to inform our members that they are changing their procedures when responding to alarms. As of May 29th, 2017 (new date to be announced) they will be implementing a VERIFIED RESPONSE program which will have several ramifications on a large majority of our members in London.

As a result, CANASA was instrumental in arranging a member meeting with LPS and several other stakeholders to get a clearer understanding of how this new program will be rolled out and implemented. Several other Police Services also attended this meeting including those of Toronto, Kingston, Windsor and Hamilton.

It is CANASA’s position that a version of Verified Response will be implemented in many more jurisdictions in the very near future as Police try to find ways to reduce responding to false alarms and cutting costs. We have also received notice from the RCMP in Kamloops BC that they too are implementing a Verified Response program as of April 1st, 2017.

It appears there are two main objectives with the Police program: cost recovery or limited response and variations or combinations of the two. The verified response strategy would eliminate Police administration costs for registration and tracking of alarms with a hope of reducing resources currently engaged in responding, managing and responding to alarm calls. Under a verified response program, calls would be streamed to the police dispatchwith no pre-registration. Based on the information provided on the call such as video/audio or multiple signals as verification, the operator would determine if the call would be dispatched. Alarm companies would also not need to manage or track registration and fees. Measuring performance of the program may be difficult, although some top view stats may be available by reviewing call stats on the Police dispatch back door numbers used by monitoring stations and using a limited number of operator choices when 911 operators are logging an alarm dispatch.

A fee-based strategy that many jurisdictions already have in place can provide police with recovery funds that may exceed their costs and help with their budgets. For example if London Police Service were to implement a $24 yearly registration for their 46,000 systems they would generate over $1.1 million to fund the program.

CANASA, along with several industry stakeholders, are working to produce several documents that can be used as a guide and template to work with local police departments to develop a more user-friendly program that will not be as intrusive as some police departments have implemented. We will share these with the industry once they become available.

CANASA will continue to be as diligent as possible to keep up with this issue and inform all our members when we have any knowledge of such programs being implemented. As always we would appreciate your input on this or any other issue of importance to you and your organization. Feel free to contact us at info@canasa.org.

Source: London Police Service Press Release