False Alarms

Flying out of Detroit Metro, I have often heard the airline say “Safety is our number one priority!” I chuckle whenever I hear that. If safety were really the number one priority, just stop all flights – Easy. Never another accident. But that’s not what they really mean. It’s actually, “While flying you to your destination, safety is our number one priority.” The airlines are trying to accomplish something while minimizing something else.

A similar situation exists in the security world. A tremendous amount of effort is being put towards false-alarm reduction. Imagine how much money could be saved if we eliminated all false alarms! Well that’s easy – just never report any alarms. But that’s not the goal; the actual goal is to provide security while minimizing false alarms.

Many reports suggest that at least 90% of all alarms called into police departments are false alarms. This may or may not be accurate though. What is a false alarm? If someone accidentally opens a door while the system is armed, the result is an alarm; a real alarm. Unintentional maybe, but still very real. If someone pulls a fire alarm pull-station for fun, it results in an alarm; a real alarm. Malicious maybe, but very real. If a rodent chews through an alarm circuit, it could result in an alarm; a real alarm. A malfunctioning alarm, but very real.

If the alarm is triggered, it is a real alarm. The siren may sound, a connection may be made to the monitoring station, and the police may be dispatched depending on what the user does after the event. The alarm is real – it could be Valid or Invalid. Valid Alarms are those that were caused by detecting a threat (i.e. a break-in, a fire, a panic button, a gun-shot, etc.) If the threat is brought under control before authorities arrive, it is still a Valid Alarm.

Invalid Alarms are those caused by unintentional actions, malicious actions, or malfunctions when there was no dangerous situation. The alarm systems has performed as intended and alerted the authorities, but a threat did not exist.

Various organizations are working to reduce false alarms Invalid Alarms including alarm companies, industry organizations, approval bodies, equipment manufacturers, government agencies, and police departments. There are standards for how to program the alarm and how the central station should respond. There have been equipment changes to improve the human interface. There have been laws passed that fine home-owners and alarm companies for excessive false alarms Invalid Alarms. There are movements afoot to validate alarms by human interaction, audio listen-in or video verification.

The City of Detroit implemented a very stringent validated alarm policy. As of mid-2011 the police department would not respond to alarm calls unless the alarm was validated: Validated through on-site visual verification, remote audio or video verification, or through verification by multiple alarms within a short time window.

Has it worked? It is hard to say: The stated goal was to reduce costs for the city. As you can imagine, over the last eight years of this policy, costs for the city did not decline and yet costs for alarm owners increased drastically to pay for the additional verification. Additionaly, there is the added cost of burglaries that went unrestrained because the owner was unable to verify1. One thing that is interesting is that in the first three years of the program (the only ones for which the data is available) property crimes decreased drastically. This seems counter-intuitive, given that thieves know that the police won’t respond immediately. The only rational explanation is that property crimes in Michigan dropped drastically across the board and Detroit was just a part of that movement. So the costs didn’t come down and the crime rate wasn’t affected negatively.

Despite the mixed results of programs like Detroit’s, validating an alarm and determining whether an alarm is Valid or Invalid, seems to be the next frontier for the security and life-safety industry.

“The purpose of a security/life-safety system is to detect and report all valid threats while suppressing all invalid events.”

It’s important that:

• We don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater and reduce the ability of the alarm to detect threats.
• Authorities respond to all threats in a timely way and don’t stop responding to alarms.
• We question whether the push to reduce false alarms Invalid Alarms has decreased the effectiveness of alarm systems.

1There doesn’t seem to be any available data on burglaries or other threats that went unreported because of the verification requirement. That information would be interesting to analyze.