The Next Generation of Campus Security

From the blue light phones installed in the 1970s to the innovative apps of the future, phone technology has come a long way in improving campus safety and security. It was the Virginia Tech school shooting that took place on April 2007 that truly identified the need for a more efficient alert system that could notify students in case of an emergency and the technological advancements that are available to campus safety teams and even students are groundbreaking.

The Blue Light and Current Systems

Colleges and universities realize that students are rarely without a cell phone, most of which are smartphones and receive email or other notifications. Because students are so cell-phone savvy, many universities and colleges use cell phone calling/text message systems for emergency notification. According to a survey conducted by the University of Louisville, about 98 percent of universities/colleges use e-mail alerts and post announcements on the school website.

The increase in cell phones over the past few decades has even caused some schools to remove the blue light systems. The University of California, Davis, for example, realized that cell phones have made the blue light system nearly useless and removed it.

"New generations of students, cellular technology and wireless 911 have made most land-line emergency phones all but obsolete," according to Jill Parker, associate vice chancellor for safety services at the University of California, Davis.  http://www.securityinfowatch.com/node/1321439

Even though the phones don’t receive a lot of use, they still cost a campus money.  The KU Office of Public Safety receives less than an average of 175 calls a year. Each phone costs $20 for the monthly phone bill, which costs around $18,720 for 78 emergency phones a year.

With parents of college students becoming more tech savvy and educated in the areas of personal safety, only some of their fears are satiated by the campus blue light system. Most are asking campus law enforcement for more details around specific safety protocols and want more assurance.

With blue phones costly and outdated, what’s a campus safety program to do? Fortunately, there’s an app for that.

Detective Thomas Bacigalupi, from George Mason University Police Department and the founder of CUPIC (College and University Police Investigators Conference), and is also a contributing author on Campus Public Safety, states, “Every parent is concerned when sending their son or daughter off to a higher education institution for the first time.  School violence is always on the minds of every parent.  With the convenience of modern technology such as smart phones today, there are many options available technology wise to help alert the student population as well as concerned parents. ”

The Mobile Blue Light

Some universities and colleges are turning to services and applications that bring the blue light concept to a cell phone. The University of Colorado-Denver has engaged MyForce services as a resource to campus safety. MyForce is the personal security application available via a smartphone that provides live, 24/7 assistance whenever a user activates the one-touch alert. MyForce provides increased response time and assistance to students and staff in the case of an emergency.

Alerts sent via the MyForce application are received and processed by MyForce’s live security monitoring team who track and process the emergency indications and notify the proper authorities with a user’s profile and GPS location.

“It’s like taking the blue light system to another level,” says Brad Zotti, CEO and co-founder of MyForce. “MyForce users have a personal security escort available on the one item that’s never out of reach: their cell phone.”

Not only does the service provide a huge selling point to campuses and sense of security to students and staff, but it also enables campus security to respond to safety issues that occur on campus faster and with greater accuracy.

“What we evaluated and appreciated was the secondary help aspect MyForce offers. MyForce is not just for the users’ peace of mind, but participants can call for help if they witness something and when someone else looks to need help,” says Chief of Police Doug Abraham, University of Colorado-Denver. “Perhaps the biggest benefit to students is they’re not only safe when there are on the campus, but when they are off campus too.”

The MyForce service is available to college campuses at no cost and is available to individual users for a monthly or annual fee.

“We recognize the budget concerns of every school,“ says Zotti. “Our model allows schools to address the concerns of the parent, provide additional protection for the student, and improve response time and accuracy of a public safety team with no cost to the institution.”

It Gets Better

Not only do these personal safety services and applications help a campus safety team respond to calls quicker, they also provide additional resources to combat the safety issues on any campus.

Unlike a stationary blue light system, a personal safety application on a smartphone typically stays on the user’s person which allows for additional safety features. For example, with MyForce, the service opens up live communication with the personal security team that is able to track GPS location and any developments via the streaming audio and report the updates to campus safety. This feature is ideal in the case of abductions or if a user has to flee from an attacker.

An additional benefit of these online personal safety applications is that users are able to upload content to an online profile that the safety teams and officials have access to in case of an emergency. With MyForce, users upload a current photo, physical description, driver’s license number, and any personal safety history or medical aliments—all of which could be essential in an emergency. These personal details would be relayed to the campus safety as soon as a valid alert is placed. MyForce users also include emergency contacts who are only notified in the case of an ongoing implication (user is attacked, hospitalized, abducted, etc.) or the user cannot be contacted or located.

Many of the applications increase the speed at which emergency response teams are able to respond, part of which is making it faster to place an alert. For example, when the MyForce application is armed, it keeps a smartphone screen from timing out so an alert can be sent with one touch versus an average phone that takes five key strokes to dial emergency services.

All of these qualities improve the ability of which campus safety teams are able to respond to students, staff and campus visitors in distress. Any college or university wants to ensure incoming families and current students that they are doing everything to make their campus as safe as possible and it’s obvious that cell phone applications and services are the next step.

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