What's New in Local Security Technology?

Readers that check your employees' fingerprints before granting them access.
Scanners that verify identity by studying the iris of an individual's eye.

Burglar alarms with their technological "ears" and "eyes" cocked for sound and movement where it should not be.

These are some of the latest technological advances available to businesses and homeowners in the security market, even in smaller markets such as Savannah. They represent an evolving industry, in which technology is challenged to keep pace with growing concerns for home and business safety, technology-savvy criminals and an appetite for gadgetry.

When businesses consider security, their concerns start inside, with their own personnel. Controlling access to facilities, and then portions of facilities, is a major security concern. Now, the field of biometrics is stepping up to supplement - or replace - the security guard at the desk who checks employee IDs.

Biometrics is the science of measuring and comparing the unique physical characteristics of an individual. The most common technique is the familiar one of fingerprints, and readers are now commercially available that enable employees' fingerprints to serve as their passwords at access points.

A more advanced cousin of this technology verifies identification by measuring the iris - the colored ring of the eye. Patterns and structures here are considered unique to each individual, and technology can compare a person's reading to his or her filed iris-coded ID.

There's one possible glitch, however, warns Chris Duncan, a Savannah security professional familiar with biometrics. The equipment is occasionally too sensitive - the changes in the iris during pregnancy can throw readings off.

With very few exceptions, the business appetite in Savannah doesn't demand such expensive and high-tech security solutions, although there are vendors who will sell, train on and maintain such systems. What is happening on a much broader basis, however, is the demand for more reliable and accountable systems.

New Regulations

The Savannah Police Department joined a chorus of other public departments earlier this year calling for help in controlling false burglar alarm calls - calls that the department identified as a major drain on time and personnel. The result? Savannah joined a growing group of cities and municipalities that regulate and penalize users of security systems that initiate repeat false alarms.

According to a U.S. Department of Justice report last year, false burglar alarms accounted for at least 10 percent of all nationwide police calls in the year 1998.

The Savannah City Council passed the new ordinance on January 23, but gave burglar alarm users and the companies that serve them until April to get their houses in order. Now, the clock is ticking. False burglar alarms are tracked and, after three "free passes," fines starting at $100 are imposed with the fourth unjustified call.

That ordinance changed the face of security monitoring services in Savannah. Outlawed outright were older systems that rang phone lines directly to the police department; alarms must go directly to security monitoring companies (already a pretty standard practice.) Alarms must also have battery backups to prevent false alarms caused by power failures - again, standard technology in this field.

The new ordinance also requires a $12 registration fee per user, to be collected by the alarm provider.

In effect, with its demand for more efficiency and the provision of financial penalties faced by the end user, the new ordinance created a whole new customer service requirement for security monitoring firms. Clients now want accountability on false alarms they don't consider to be their fault, and the city's staying out of that fight, saying it's between client and service provider.

What causes false alarms in the first place? The most common is human error - an arriving early employee or a child returning from school who fails to disarm an alarm system before entering.

What are other triggers? Here's a sample: location of monitors too close to an air handler; swinging signs that trigger motion detectors; pets, stray animals and vermin (even with systems that claim to be pet-neutral), even party balloons settling down from the ceiling in a home. And the trade-off is this: the more sensitive the system, the more likely to produce a false alarm.

Microphones, not motion

One solution has been verified alarms - those that only make it to police after being authenticated by monitors. Developed and in use are systems that use microphones and video cameras to track sound and movement and to signal off-site monitors to review recordings and real-time audio or video when there are unusual noise or movement levels at a site.

Duncan moved to Savannah 16 months ago to launch a franchised verified alarm system with which he and his family have been working since the mid-1970s in Oregon. The company is Sonitrol, and he operates as Sonitrol of Savannah.

The core product is a stored audio alarm verification system based on microphones, not motion detectors. When activated at the business on nights or weekends, the microphones listen for unusual sounds. They screen out the building's normal ambient noise level - air conditioning, telephones, the motor on the water cooler - and listen for more distinctive sounds, like someone breaking through a wall or rooftop. If a triggering sound is heard, the recorded sounds and a live audio feed go to the central monitoring station.

The microphones are only turned on when the user activates them, so business or home activities aren't listened in on.

A video cousin of this technology is also in limited use locally, with video cameras cued by movement and alerting human monitors when there is something significant - screening out windblown leaves, and leaving it up to the monitor to distinguish between a stray dog pack that would be a false alarm and a human intruder.

Duncan said about 90 percent of his clients are business or industrial, although there are some high-end residential customers. His service area includes Chatham, Liberty, Bryan and Effingham counties in Georgia.

By Betty Darby, TBR staff, The Business Report & Journal

About Sonitrol:
Sonitrol Corporation is the leading provider of Verified Response security solutions for businesses and schools in North America. Founded by a policeman, the company's technology was created to reduce false alarms and increase apprehensions. Sonitrol's proprietary audio verification capability has assisted local law enforcement in the apprehension of more than 155,000 suspects since 1977. Its integrated suite of offerings includes audio intrusion alarms, access control, video surveillance and fire detection. For more information on Sonitrol and its integrated security solutions, please visit the company's website at www.sonitrol.com.