It's too early to tell whether the policy has already cut false alarms... but it will do
I have been asked to write about the Association of Chief Police Officers (England Wales & Northern Ireland) Security System Policy 2000 – Six months on.

The difficulty I have is deciding which 'Six months on' to work from.

I am suffering exactly the same experience as alarm installers have had to face across the country when each of the 43 police forces picked differing dates for implementation. I can now empathise with you and I would like to both congratulate and thank the industry for the positive way in which ACPO 2000 has been picked up and put into practice.

What is particularly pleasing for me is to see that the industry has risen to the challenges of confirmation, charging and reduced thresholds.

From gloom to optimism
When I look back to the beginning of the year and the Security Installer and BT RedCARE ACPO Unscrambled forums I was full of gloom and despondency. No one seemed to know anything about ACPO 2000, but at least I had the opportunity to tell those who attended about it.

The British Standard Draft for Development 243: 1999 (BS DD 243:1999) was almost unheard of. Indeed, at Windsor only one person out of the entire audience possessed a copy!

The whole concept of a confirmed activation being passed to police was confusing. Similarly, there was opposition to the introduction of charges by police and the reduction in thresholds seemed so severe that some wondered if any system would have a police response.

Fortunately, there were those who saw the new policy as an opportunity to generate more business and increase the status of the security industry. They saw the chance to charge realistic prices for the services they provided and an opportunity to move away from competing solely on price.

Eagerly awaiting update
What a difference a few months has made. The requirement for confirmed signals to be passed to police is now well established and has been in place, in most parts of the country, for those systems that have lost police response for some time, but only recently for all new systems. Everyone is aware of BS DD 243:1999 and we all eagerly await the revised version that we had expected before October 2001.

I was a member of the British Standards Institute Working Group tasked with revising the 1999 version. As the group went off to tackle this task, we were sure it would only be a matter of a few quick clauses to clarify the existing document. How wrong we were! This was going to be a mammoth task. How do you make sure that the keyholder attending after a single activation doesn't create the confirmed alarm when he attends the premises?

That, of course, almost paled into insigni-ficance when we wrestled with the types of detectors that could or couldn't create a con-firmed activation and what was permitted to overlap – a whole subject in itself.

Filtering the problem
What about filtering? And will we still need an opportunity to signal mis-operation? How do you stop sending a confirmed signal if someone strays off the entry route or runs out of entry time?

A whole host of problems, but the effort put in by manufacturers, installers, alarm receiving centres, inspectorates, insurers and trade associations to complete the document was phenomenal. Finally, it was completed and we can now all look forward to its publication.

It was regrettable that the document did not appear before October but the concession granted will perhaps allow installers to tackle the challenges of confirmed system design, and rest a little easier in their beds at night.

I am sure it will take some time before system designers and installers get their heads fully around the concept of confirmation. In sequential systems they will need to look at the type of signal they wish to send from specific areas rather than looking at a confirmed system in the same way as that of a traditional unconfirmed system.

The policy says personal attack activations should be confirmed … no one knows what a confirmed personal attack activation is

When designing hybrid systems utilising any combination of audio, sequential or visual confirmation, there is the possibility of either confusing or simplifying the concept. Insurers, on their part, are asking for systems using audio or visual technology to also have a sequential capability.

Just what is a confirmed PA?
Having seen the security industry rise to challenges in the past, I have no doubt that having had the opportunity to familiarise themselves with this technology since 1995, installers will quickly become accustomed to installing police responding systems to the requirements of the relevant standards.

On a more specific point, personal attack activations should be confirmed, according to the policy.

There is of course a problem with this requirement, as no one knows what a confirmed personal attack activation is.

I have heard suggestions of a dual action button on one side of the room and another similar button on the other side of the room.

This is clearly not a practical option.

It would seem that the answer is to filter personal attack activations to ensure that only genuine calls are passed to police. There is however a body of opinion opposed to any form of filtering stating that the risk of injury to likely victims is too high. I have been told that a telephone call ringing during an armed robbery may well cause the perpetrator to panic and shoot his victim.

Others consider that the delay in filtering may cause dire results or that a person subject to a hold-up may state they are in trouble if forced to answer a telephone, and this would result in their injury. Yes, any of these things could happen, but in reality I don't consider any of those scenarios to be likely.

Don't take risks
Mobile telephones ringing are now so commonplace that there is little likelihood of this panicking a robber. It is more likely that any phone calls will be to or from one of the other customers present during the attack. Similarly, a delay of even 30 seconds is unlikely to have any effect on the outcome, as in the vast majority of cases the robbers have left prior to any possible police attendance.

In the final scenario, the action of an intended victim as to whether they claim to be under attack is much the same as if they decide to press the personal attack button during a raid having been told not to.

Police advice has always been to hand over the money and not to take any unnecessary risks. This advice would still be valid in the event of filtering.

I stress the importance of police and the industry working together … we’ve not been good at this in the past but we must make every effort in the future

The latest situation on 'personal attack' is that the police will continue to respond as we have always done. In the future, however, this must change, as we see in London personal attack activations reaching 16 per cent of all false calls from security systems.

This is a substantial demand on police resources and a demand at our very highest response level. In consequence, the security industry has been tasked by the ACPO Security System Group to create a code of practice to ensure that deliberately operated devices are filtered. This would ensure that activations are only passed to police where serious injury to persons has occurred, or where there is clear potential for injury.

Variations on a theme
Having mentioned the differing dates for introduction of the ACPO 2000 Policy and the problems that this caused, I need to address the many policy variations. ACPO is aware of these deviations to policy across the 43 police forces and is endeavouring to address them in partnership with the security industry.

The alignment of these variations will not necessarily be a quick fix but l am hopeful that some can be addressed in the short term.

Needless to say, the Editor's concept of this article was to determine how the policy was changing the false call rates. This is, of course, the acid test but it's the one question I am unable to answer at present.

Nationally, we have seen some forces introduce their policy as late as October of this year. Others introduced theirs in January or April. No doubt at the end of the year we will see some effects, but I would suggest they will be minimal.

For the Metropolitan Police Service we have seen a reduction in the average false activations per system per year to 0.7 for the 12-month period ending September 2001. This is a drop from 0.8 for the 12-month period ending December 2000, a welcome reduction that we anticipate will continue through to the end of this year.

What we also know is that from the 22,000 confirmed systems in London that only pass on confirmed activations, we have a false call rate of 0.046 activations per system per year. We shall be watching the average false call rate closely and expect it to remain much the same.

With all new systems (and those that had lost response) now being confirmed systems, this technology will, over time, reduce false calls. Further reductions will also occur with the filtering of personal attack activations, once the code of practice is in place. I consider that these two reductions coupled together will, in time, have a dramatic effect on the unnecessary demands made on police resources.

Police and industry partnership
In conclusion, I wish to stress the importance of police and the security industry working together. We have not been particularly good at this in the past but both sides must make every effort in the future. We may not always agree with each other, but the need to communicate becomes more important at times when we disagree and it is at these times that we have to make greater effort and not dig in and isolate ourselves.