UK NPCC justifiably lowers the bar for entry to Inhouse monitoring stations -Read More

In the UK, the Police make it necessary for control rooms to be compliant with EN50518 before responding to calls unless there is a guarantee of 'intruders on the premises' (something only CCTV verified alarms could achieve). This standard comprises two categories.

CAT1 control rooms require a high level of physical security, whereas CAT2 are less physically protected.

Now almost twelve years old (EN50518 is an extension of BS5979 dating back to 1973), the standard has largely been negated by technology. Alarms no longer received in one single location, the reason for the physical requirements but networked to multiple control rooms with redundancy in the event of one (or more) failing.

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We have had to concede that inhouse monitoring stations pass less calls for assistance than those commercial centres. The false alarm reductions industry proposed twenty years ago just don't seem to be working.

Many intruder alarm panels now support network transmission without the necessity for a third-party device.

There is also less of a requirement for secondary external signalling methods as networks are resilient and often with multiple pathways; high network speed allows pinging of the equipment with increasing ping options to the sensor.

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The categories do not take into account the fears of exploitation that connecting networks to commercial security exposes. Our force has monitored its intruder and high risk vulnerable alarms for over thirteen years. There is no way our network will allow external access. It is as simple as that.

The World is rapidly changing, especially in alarm handling and signalling.

The Police, many of whom now connect their internal intruder alarms directly over their network without connection to a Security Company, have accepted that businesses, local government and national networks may adopt CAT2 for their intruder/PA and CCTV monitoring. This change to the NPCC policy enables alarm monitoring to be added to town and city surveillance centres at a reasonable cost making them more cost-effective to the local community.

Naturally, providing their insurer is happy to do so.

There has also been a tacit acceptance that inhouse monitoring stations tend to generate far fewer false alarms because they can undertake more intense verification. The volume of operators to warnings is significantly improved. The ratio is typically one operator for every ten thousand connected systems for a commercial ARC; when inhouse, it is one operator to one thousand systems.

Initsys Merlin is an advanced rules-based alarm management system with robotics that allow local government control rooms to deal with intruder/PA and verify alarms using CCTV. Available as SaaS and Enterprise versions, this software will enable any control room to be more efficient and flexible whilst maintaining and improving on standards found in commercial ARC.

For more information, don't hesitate to get in touch with Initsys.

Email - Admin@initsys.net for immediate attention.

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