Historically, PSAPs (Public Safety Answering Points) have used recording technology to capture and preserve their 9-1-1 and radio communications. Recordings are the crucial link to reconstructing incidents. They recount who said what to whom and when — from the first chaotic moments of a 9-1-1 call to its eventual response and conclusion. But much has changed in the four decades since the first 9-1-1 call was placed. PSAPs now have sophisticated technologies available to them that they could have only dreamed of in the late 1960s. Today, there is vastly more multimedia information available to unlock the incident timeline of what happened, when. And even more is coming with Next Generation 9-1-1. This article, published in the winter edition of Government Buyer magazine, shows how the NICE Inform multimedia incident information management solution is helping PSAPs like the City of Westminster prepare for Next Gen 9-1-1.

In Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland” the main character is wandering through a bewildering new land with no idea what lay ahead. She happens across the strange talking “Cheshire Cat” and an interesting dialog ensues about which road to take. After discerning her lack of any destination other than to get “somewhere” the sanguine Cat finally tells her, “If you don’t know where you’re going then any road will get you there.”

If the tragic events of 9-11-2001 taught us one thing, it’s that a system that compartmentalizes information and relies on manual efforts to link critical data is doomed to be reactive and inefficient. This is true in the case of government agencies and private sector security/risk management as well.

There was a time when fences or other physical barriers were the only way to protect a perimeter from intrusion. Not so today. In this Government Security News article, video analytics expert Guy Lorman examines how perimeter intrusion detection solutions (PIDS) have evolved, with video analytics as the backbone. He also discusses different ways to deploy PIDS, from virtual fences to smart fences for highly sensitive facilities. And he shares some tips for making your PIDS solution most effective.