Provident was featured in the Vancouver Sun today in a series of articles on ‘outsourcing your life’.

The article mentions a few of the different homewatch services we offer including filling your fridge with fresh milk, eggs, cheese and juice for your return from vacation, as well as making sure that the dogwalker is actually walking the dog.

Getting to the bottom of the dogwalking issue mentioned in the story was a combination of both our homewatch service and alarm monitoring… and illustrates one of the many benefits of not sharing alarm codes.

Every user of your alarm should be assigned a unique user code to arm/disarm the system. Most alarms, and certainly every system that we have installed in the past five years, are capable of having dozens of different user codes. Just two of the benefits of not sharing codes are that:

1. Individual codes allow for restricted access for some users. For example, if you have a cleaning lady who only comes on Wednesdays, we can program her code to only work on Wednesdays between 8:00am and 6:00pm (or whatever hours you’d like); likewise, in a retail store, employees codes can be made to operate the system within reasonable windows of time before and after regular office hours (rather than full 24 hour access).
2. Individual codes provide an audit trail. If everyone uses a unique code, we can always look back into the event history of your alarm and tell you that it was Bob who disarmed the system at 6:43am on Tuesday, not Mary.

In the case of the dogwalker mentioned in the article, we were able to review the event history on the client’s alarm and see that rather than seeing the dogwalker disarm & arm the system in the morning and afternoon, she was only arming and disarming once… with only 10 minutes between. Based on this information, we sent one of our Mobile Team members to watch the house at the appropriate time and confirm what we (& the client) suspected… that the dog was not being taken for a hike at all.

In you would like to add, delete or modify any user codes for your alarm, give us a call. We can program almost every single one of our client’s alarms remotely and can help you configure individual codes from our office.

To set-up a homewatch for the next time that you are out of town for the day, weekend or month (or anything in between), call us at 604.664.1087 to arrange for a member of our team to pick up your mail & newspapers, water your plants, check the furnace or whatever else might need to be done. We’ll drive you and the family to the airport, pick you up when you return and make sure that your fridge is full of exactly what you would like to be in it. What can we do for you?

Provident was featured in a cover story in the February issue of Security Systems News… which is one of the largest security trade journals in the United States.

The story talks about a number of our Homewatch services that we provide such as picking up newspapers, watering plants, airport dropoff/pick-up and shoveling snow.

It also mentions that Provident was named the 11th Best Place to Work in BC by BC Business Magazine and Caliber Leadership Systems. (This was the second year in a row that we have made the list… last year we placed #24)

Click on the image above to read the full article.

Recently, ABC7 News in San Francisco ran stories about a Utah-based security firm, Firstline Security, using a new version of an old and wide-spread, security industry sales tactic/trick. The pitch has a few variations, but is typically some version of a salesperson offering homeowners a “free” alarm system in exchange for allowing the company to put a sign in their front yard.

Not satisfied with simply scamming clients, Firstline also looked to scam their own employees… by creating a fake reality show called ‘The Prodigy’. The company recruited on University campuses throughout the United States.

By offering a $1,000,000.00 prize, Firstline ‘hired’ several thousand college students to compete by selling ‘free’ security systems to homeowners throughout the United States.

Of course, not only was the supposed reality show a scam, so were the actual system ‘installations’. If you watch the video clips by following the links below, you may recognize that the equipment that Firstline was selling is the exact alarm that I discussed in my post ‘Why Millions of Home Alarms are Useless‘. Independent of the equipment itself being suspect, based on hundreds of consumer complaints, it appears as though many of the systems were never even connected for actual monitoring.

ABC7′s first story talked about the fake reality show and can be seen by clicking here. After it aired, they received enough complaints from viewers that they did two follow-up stories.

The other segments are:

1. Consumers get faulty alarm systems
   
2. Reality Show Producer talks to ABC7

Apparently, Firstline is back recruiting on campus again for their next summertime assault.

Although the reality show spin was unique, the pitch of “we’ll give you a free alarm system if you let us put our lawn sign up” is used by hundreds of companies all over the US and Canada. The companies who offer the ‘free’ system are most often selling the signed contract to a third party, normally ADT, Monitronics, or another large security firm that purchases bulk accounts. In this case mentioned above, Firstline was selling the contracts to Monitronics in Texas.

It sounds like Firstline figured that in order to really ramp-up sales, they were going to need to simultaneously scam consumers as well as the employees selling to them.

David Cay Johnston is a NY Times reporter who has written a new book called ‘Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (and Stick you with the Bill)’ that is getting a fair amount of press in the States.

In addition to the typical targets like Wal-Mart that you might expect a book like this to discuss, Johnston devotes an entire chapter to the alarm industry… referring to the fact that police response to burglar alarms is an incredibly costly and ineffective use of taxpayers money.

In essence, he is saying the same thing that I have said on this blog and in several interviews… that the alarm industry is a parasite on the Police and is profiting through making a bad problem worse.

Here is a quote:

“The burglar alarm industry charges hefty fees for a service that costs it very little. Then the industry dumps onto the taxpayers the real costs of providing the very service it sells. This is economic pollution sold to people under the guise of making them safe. In fact, it makes them less safe.”

I was interviewed a couple weeks ago by Security Systems News, an American trade journal that was writing a story about the book. I was the lone industry voice (at least in the article) that was agreeing with Johnston. Click here to read the SSN story.

There is absolutely no question that police response to burglar alarms is a collossal waste of taxpayers money. With a false alarm rate of 98%, taxpayers throughout North America are getting fleeced by helping subsidize the alarm industry.. in effect allowing it to sell an incomplete service and get rich doing so.

What’s worse then the fact that the alarm industry is offloading the crucial component of its ‘service’ to the Police, is the fact that Police response itself, irrespective of who pays for it, is virtually useless.

The simple fact is that with a 98% false alarm rate (70% of which are caused by user error), Police Departments throughout North America cannot, and will not, provide immediate response. Instead, they require that an effort is made to ‘verify’ the alarm. This involves calling the alarmed premises, and in the case of ‘enhanced call verification‘ making a second call to the alarm owner, before dispatching the Police. This process all but ensures that by the time the Police are notified of the alarm, any incident that might have taken place will be long over. Unless a neighbour or some other human being actually calls 911 to report a burglary in progress, the Police are not going to respond anytime soon.

A burglar alarm is not a deterrent… it’s only purpose is to provide information that has an incredibly short shelf life. Unless response to the alarm is immediate, there is incredibly little value offered by a monitored alarm.

I’ve written about this topic a few times, here are links to three relevant posts…

1. The Alarm Industry is a Parasite on the Police
2. Provident vs. Alarmforce on CKNW
3. Burglar Alarms: an ‘Unneccessary Burden’?

On a more positive note, about what you actually should be doing, read ‘Five Minute Proofing‘ … in my experience, Five Minute Proofing is the most effective tactic that you can use to reduce your risk of being a victim. Of course, what is essential for Five Minute Proofing to be of value is that response to your alarm is immediate… the reason that Police response doesn’t work is that it is very hard, if not impossible, to ‘One Hour Proof’.

In Business in Vancouver a few weeks ago, I was quoted in an article about security concerns for Olympic sponsors… in light of recent vandalism to a few RBC branches.

Here is an excerpt from the BIV column…

Olympic anarchy

Safety and security ought to be top-of-mind for the Royal Bank of
Canada after vandals destroyed windows at two branches and bragged on
blogs. All because of RBC’s $110 million cash and services sponsorship
of VANOC. Anonymous anarchists struck at Hastings and Nanaimo on
September 29 and Commercial and First on December 8. It’s perhaps the
most public evidence of anti-2010 sentiment since March’s Olympic flag
theft from city hall.

“From the beginning there has always been more opposition to the
Games than before, and I take that as a measure of the politics of
B.C.,” said Kevin Wamsley of the University of Western Ontario’s
International Centre for Olympic Studies.

RBC confirmed the incidents, but wouldn’t discuss safety and security measures.

Provident Security’s Michael Jagger said businesses can battle
vandals with shatter-resistant safety film, laminated glass and motion
sensitive surveillance cameras. Video systems can be programmed to
detect unusual behaviour, such as loitering. That would trigger an
alarm for a security staffer to investigate.

Companies needn’t wave the white flag and opt for unsightly bars or
garage door-style shutters. “Security done quickly is ugly,” Jagger
said.

While it is unfortunate that these types of incidents happen at all, I think that the response to them is often worse. Although there are some creative examples of security bars installed at some retail stores, the overwhelming majority of security efforts such as bars, roll shutters and bollards are really ugly.

Unfortunately, security is typically an afterthought… it is rarely built into the design of most people’s homes or businesses while the designs are still on paper. Most often, increased security, whether it is an alarm or any physical security device, is implemented in a mad panic immediately after a burglary or incident. As a result, security done quickly is often incredibly ugly.

The reality is that while architects, designers and builders often spend hours on almost every other physical design aspect of a project, security is very often left until after the last minute… often resulting in unnecessary ugliness.

On Monday, I was a guest on the Christy Clark show on CKNW … talking about how five minute proofing is the most effective strategy for reducing your risk of a burglary.

We also talked about how the typical residential burglary occurs as well as some of the common problems with most alarms. We also talked a little about BLINK mesh radio and other alternative alarm signal transmission methods.

If you would like to listen to the whole interview click here… if you would like to download the audio file so that you can listen to the show over and over and over again on your iPod (or even just once) click here. … both audio files are a little slow loading… sorry, we’re working on that to see if we can speed it up a bit.

For those that would rather read about most of the topics discussed during the show, here are links to some of the relevant posts from this blog that I talked about while on the show…

1. Why Millions of Home Alarms are Useless
2. Your Security is in your Redundancy
3. Securing Your Plasma TV
4. Securing your single hung windows or sliding doors
5. Securing your yard

There are many other simple things that you can do to reduce your risk of a burglary… Many of them are listed in dozens of other posts that are listed in the ‘Home Security Tips’ category.

Here is a news story from Kentucky where a would-be robber thought that it might make sense to wrap his head in duct tape in order to conceal his identity.

A few months ago I posted a link to a clip titled “world’s worst burglar” which I was able to pull out a security lesson to be learned… in this case, there really isn’t anything to learn. The robber is just an idiot. That’s the whole story.

Here is a link to the whole interview.

An interesting story from the BBC regarding several neighbourhoods in London adding speakers to the existing CCTV systems already in place on public streets. The speakers will apparently play prerecorded messages when people are observed littering as well as allow for staff in the central monitoring facilities to speak directly to people being watched on camera.

We have used similar technology with several of our clients in underground parkades. The way that the system works is that if an installed camera in a parkade detects motion during a specific time-frame, we will receive an ‘alarm’ signal that provides one of our Operations Centre team with a live video feed. We can then pick up the phone and talk directly through a speaker installed at the site to suggest that the person snooping around the parked vehicles might want to consider leaving before actually breaking into a car.

Along the same lines, another variation that we setup for a client who was having a problem with homeless people climbing over his fence to sleep in his backyard (downtown), was to connect the alarm output from the camera system that we installed to the existing lawn sprinkler system. Between midnight and 5:00am, every time that the camera detected motion inside of the yard, the sprinkler system would turn on for two minutes.

Before connecting the sprinkler, we were responding in person at least a couple times a night to rouse the ‘visitors’. Once the water was introduced, the problem went away almost immediately.

Similar to the pre-recorded message tactic in London, but a little more direct.

The Vancouver Police released their Patrol Deployment Study this week. Parts of the report will be presented to Vancouver City Council on Tuesday, February 13th.

The complete report is 1,335 pages long and contains a lot of very interesting information and recommendations. As has been widely reported already, the report indicates that Vancouver has the highest crime rate of any city in Canada. For me, the most interesting part of the report is where the average VPD response times to 911 calls were reported….

On the Westside, between June 1, 2005 and May 31, 2006, the average VPD response time to a Priority 1 call was 11 minutes, 21 seconds. A Priority 1 call, as defined by the VPD is a call that "requires immediate Police attention. They are life threatening calls that can lead to death or grievous bodily harm." A bit scary.

Average response times to the other three priorities are much, much worse (the following numbers are all city-wide)…

    Priority 2      34 minutes, 37 seconds
    Priority 3      2 hours, 6 minutes
    Priority 4      5 hours, 26 minutes

The following definitions are taken verbatim from the VPD report:    

Priority 2 calls are urgent calls that require immediate police attention but do not involve a life threatening situation. Priority 2 calls include abandoned 9-1-1 calls, break and enters in progress, fights, frauds in progress, indecent acts in progress, mischiefs in progress and prowlers.

Priority 3 calls are routine calls. Priority 3 calls include assaults (not in progress), sexual assaults (not in progress), noise complaints, disturbing parties, hazardous situations, missing persons and sudden deaths.

Priority 4 calls are low priority non-urgent calls. Priority 4 calls include break and enters (not in progress), frauds, mischiefs and thefts.

As a result, the VPD are asking city council to approve funding for 65 additional Officers… a request that, given the comments so far by the City, seems unlikely to be granted anytime soon. (Mayor Sullivan has been quoted a few times talking about his support for re-deploying existing Officers, rather than adding new ones)

This topic will be the focus of the Bill Good Show on CKNW Monday, February 12th at 9:00am. I have been asked to be a part of the panel of guests discussing the issue and will be talking about a suggestion that I have made on the show, as well as on this blog that offers one cheap and easy way to immediately improve the efficiency of the VPD.

You can listen to the show live on the internet by clicking on the "Listen Live" icon on the top right corner of the CKNW home page, just above the weather report.

Here is a link to a story published yesterday about a man traveling in Germany who was able to watch crooks breaking into his home in Brazil over the Internet and coordinate Police response.

The camera system at his beach house in Brazil was set to alert him when any motion was sensed. When he got the alert, he logged onto his laptop and was able to see exactly what was happening in his home thousands of miles away.

This is a very similar story to a recent attempted burglary near 37th & Granville that I posted about where a client was similarly alerted and able to call the Vancouver Police… who subsequently responded and arrested two men just as they were trying to smash a window to gain entry.

It is also the same technology that we use in our own building to protect our vehicles, generator and office. Please give us a call or email if you are interested in coming by for a demonstration to see exactly how this works.