by Julián Arcila
The situation described occurs more frequently in markets such as the United States and Canada. There the media often serve as channels for reporting cases in which police officers have had to leave their duties to respond to false calls from alarm centers.
In Latin America, the incidence of this phenomenon is not low. Unlike the countries mentioned, it seems that this situation has no mourners, since the media do not disclose data related to the occurrence of these events, since it is mistakenly believed that it is a direct responsibility of the GCED and that little or nothing has to matter to the community.
This is only one of the symptoms of the lack of control and regulation of security systems in the region; what is more serious: it is a sign of the lack of cooperation between provider and user to ensure the full functioning of the systems. What the end user often ignores is that in this case the same principle of the story of the lying shepherd applies, that in the face of the frequency of false alarms it will no longer be paid attention at the time it may be needed.
Another delicate situation throughout this process is that in Latin America the problem is more serious because there is no cooperation between police forces and NDEs; everything is more bureaucratic and for there to be attention to an alarm you first have to verify that you are in fact facing a case of intrusion.
SECURITY SALES spoke with five actors related to the alarm sector: two representatives of ECM, two manufacturers of alarm technology and a training expert.
Huge problem
In the United States and Canada the problem is literally huge. According to the lee county sheriff's office in Florida, about 35,000 false alarms are answered each year. Each time one of these alerts is received, two officers are sent, which translates into thousands of hours of personnel consumed uselessly; such a situation also reduces the effectiveness of the Commissioner's office and weakens its ability to respond effectively to crucial truth situations. This led to the authorities of that county, in addition to two other municipalities, developing the legislation of alarms, by which each person who wishes to use them must follow certain regulations.
It is important to note that in the United States, for example, the generation of a false alarm generates fines and punishments for the end user, because for the authorities of that country most of these phenomena are caused by failures in communication and coordination between user and monitoring station, or by actions or omissions of the user.
According to experts, the most recurrent causes for the occurrence of false alarms are: the use of incorrect codes, lack of training to authorized users, discharged battery systems, unsecured windows or doors after the system has been assembled, pets, the non-notification to the ECM of planned openings or closings and not requiring the company to If you would notify people in the contact list before calling the police.
And it is that the figures on the impact of this phenomenon in the United States are alarming and nothing new. By 1998, in that year alone, police responded to approximately 38 million alarm triggers, with an estimated annual cost of $1.5 trillion. This is aggravated if one takes into account that according to the False Anti-Theft Alarms guide, each year the Chicago Police respond to more than 300 thousand alarm signals, of which 98% are false alarms.
But let's look at the present. Recently (April 2008), the police of a small city in the United States called Viginia Beach reported that they receive 22,000 calls annually informing the entry into operation of an alarm system, which represents an average of 60 a day, a figure much higher than the averages of calls for other causes. According to information published by the newspaper The Virginean Pilot, almost most of these signals are false alarms, a situation that has led the police to ask for an increase in prices for reporting false alarms.
In Miami Dade, according to the police department, about 80,000 false alarms occurred each year, a situation that led them to create their own statute for the possession of alarms; the success has been such that since the entry into force of the standard, the problem has been reduced by 38% and has allowed savings of U$1.7 million.
The problem in Latin America
According to the surveys that were carried out with some experts, Latin America presents variations with respect to the United States, but in the end it is the same. As stated above, on Latino soil the police are not called before an alarm, but it is usually the monitoring companies who come to verify the event; if there is indeed a case of intrusion the staff of the monitoring station contact the police forces.
This, as already said, generates a bureaucratic space and slow reaction, on the one hand. On the other hand, what it generates is a waste of money that could be used by the companies that provide the service in the improvement of technical capacity, to provide a better service to customers.
And it is that in Latin America the situation is very difficult. According to Carlos Guzman, instruction coordinator of ALAS (Latin American Security Association), the most serious problem in the region when it comes to these security systems are false alarms. It is presented, he said, in all countries, from Argentina to Peru, passing through Colombia.
"The problem of Latin America is serious because of the lack of knowledge and application of technical standards that we have in our territories despite the fact that we have certified 3500 people, the change that has occurred is very slow. On the other hand, Venezuela has taken a big step; there the monitoring stations apply programs for the reduction of false alarms and this has resulted in an economic benefit for them, since the phenomenon has its impact not so much on the value of the occurrence of the event but on the false dispatch of verification personnel, which in Latin America has an approximate value of U$50 whether it is the sending of a police force or a private patrol," he noted.
Daniel Banda, CEO of SoftGuard Tech Corp., agreed with Guzmán in his statements and highlighted the seriousness of the phenomenon in the region. "Official and unofficial rates in Argentina handle figures that indicate that between 80 and 85% of the alarms that arrive at a central station constitute false alarms. Obviously, these service providers are concerned about improving this reality, either because they hit their economy or because they have contraventional schemes in which they are fined for these factors. A large percentage of false alarms are the responsibility of the user," he said.
For his part, Osvaldo Callegari, representative of Umbrella Security, an Argentine company dedicated to the offer of alarm monitoring services, explained that in his case only 30% of the shots correspond to false alarms and indicated that most of these are due to the misuse that users make of these systems. He commented that "the most complicated issue is that the client can correctly manage his alarm system; this means that there is no widespread awareness of the problem."
But in contrast to the above, Pierre Sánchez, general director of Telesentinel Mexico, Central Monitoring Station that also offers its services in Colombia and Brazil, said that in the three countries the problem is very severe. "99% of the alarms we receive are false. Bogotá, for example, has 15 thousand users. Monthly 10,000 alarms arrive, of which only 60 correspond to real events," he said.
User indifference: root cause
According to the interviews held with the experts, the responsibility for false alarms seems to fall mainly on the user and little mention is made of poor installation or poor maintenance, which was traditionally one of the causes that were argued for the occurrence of false alarms.
However, Sánchez adds a little more to the case of user responsibility. "After selling the instruments and advising the client, the appropriate equipment is installed, but many times customers do not notify the monitoring companies about changes they make, as well as do not report on structural changes; sometimes they also do not have enough foresight to close all the doors and windows. These situations are big causes of false alarms."
Actions to remedy the problem?
In Latin America, the adoption of regulations for the possession of alarms does not yet seem to be a measure of wide acceptance. The actions that companies seem to undertake in the region are more towards the training of users. The professionals interviewed commented on cases in which measures are being taken, as well as in those in which no measures are being taken.
Patricio Ramallo, sales director for Latin America of Electronics Line, said that in Argentina work has been underway for many years on the creation of a law for the use of alarms and procedures for ECMs. In his opinion, "solving the problem of false alarms is very simple. First, with the installation of quality equipment, above those of low cost, and, second, training and certifying own and outsourced installers."
Chile is a country that has already initiated actions in the normative sense. "In this country the carabineros are trying to create regulations; in the Dominican Republic they are looking to implement the sia, UL and other standards that refer to alarms. They are trying to translate and implement them, taking into account that such regulations have already been on the market for a long time and have been extensively tested; it is then a question of not tropicalizing the rules, but adapting to some that are already there and that have worked," said Carlos Guzmán.
In Latin America, according to Daniel Banda, although there are no known concrete actions that have been adopted, he does know of some initiatives that could be launched aimed at controlling false alarms. "Now, as in the region the tendency is not to impute the end user, because it is a very large mass and this would be difficult to control, what is contemplated would be to impute to the intermediary, which is the security company. So in this sense if there are initiatives, legislations in several countries; Argentina is an example of this, as companies that register in the legal regulatory framework of certain jurisdictions, for example the Province of Buenos Aires, are obliged to send reports on users, their addresses and the type of alarm they have. This may lead to a punitive scheme being contemplated at some point, but this is at an embryonic stage."
This was confirmed by Osvaldo Callegari of Umbrella Security.
From the point of view of an ECM such as Telesentinel, there is a serious element by which false alarms have not been regulated or the user has not been required to take greater responsibility, and consists of some practices that certain monitoring companies have adopted to gain market, for which the user is not charged false alarms for fear of losing the client. "Nothing has been done to remedy the problem because despite the fact that the rule says that from the second or third false alarm the user will be charged, no one does it for fear of losing the client and that another central tells him 'stay with me and do not charge you the false alarms'; in Latin America there is no regulation like there is in the United States in which the user is forced to pay for a false alarm practically the same as for the monthly rent of the service".
A future perspective
The future of the alarm segment with respect to false warnings is not very clear, because as the opinions of the experts appear, questions also arise.
In the first place, and with respect to what Banda said in relation to the imputation of the intermediary and not of the end user, such a measure would be unfair at the moment when the responsibility for the false alarm falls on the user. It is also worth asking what would happen to the alarm business in a market in which users are not responsible, because they have no charge for the misuse they make of a system; the logical thing is that monitoring companies cease to be profitable. From the above, the user must be completely responsible for their inattention and this is indifferent to the number of users there are, because the only alarm market in the United States exceeds 50 million people and there this is well regulated.
In relation to what Sánchez said, once again the need to form unions that work for the common good of security companies is striking. The question that arises in the face of this is whether at any time the development of a market or economic segment will be reached when there is no standardization of practices and procedures, and when each actor acts according to its own convenience.
Finally it is important to mention something that Daniel Banda mentioned in relation to the technology most prone to false alarms. According to this Argentine professional, the mode of transmission has little to do with it, while the great cause of this phenomenon is the indifferent attitude of users. As long as this element does not improve the false alarms will not decrease.
An important aspect to keep in mind is that previously telephone line alarm systems had test shipments at the rate of one per day; GPRS systems send test messages with a greater frequency and if this verification coincides with a fall of the cellular network, or if this problem is multiplied by an increasing number of users using this modality, all the above could lead to think that the phenomenon of false alarms could increase from the tea cnico.
However, it is time for monitoring companies to start getting closer to municipal authorities to design regulations that allow standardizing the use of these resources.
For those who are interested in knowing a model ordinance for the use of alarms can see it on the page: http://www.faraonline.org/html/model_ordinances.asp, belonging to FARA (Association for the Reduction of False Alarms, for its acronym in English).
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