ESA, SIA & TMA Urge Public Safety Leaders to Consider Importance of Electronic Security, Fire, Life Safety & Monitoring Services

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The Electronic Security and Life Safety Industry Associations call on state leadership to ensure that essential emergency services are not suspended or impacted by the COVID-19 crisis.

The Electronic Security Association (ESA), Security Industry Association (SIA), and The Monitoring Association (TMA) have partnered to circulate a letter drawing state public safety leaders’ attention to the essential emergency services provided by electronic security, fire, life safety and monitoring companies and ensure that those who depend on them are not adversely impacted during the evolving situation with the COVID-19 pandemic.

The letter, which has already garnered more than 450 signatures from industry CEOs, company owners and leaders, highlights the critical functions of alarm response centers for monitoring, saving first responder resources, alerting businesses to potential break-ins or troubles, monitoring and notifying customers of health emergencies, following industry standard best practices and more.

The letter’s two requests for state leaders are to:

  1. Ensure that government policy reflects that companies providing essential emergency services and field service and dispatch remain operational
  2. Provide an exemption for electronic security, monitoring and life safety services as essential services in any shelter-in-place, quarantine or similar order

[Note: TMA is continuing to collect signatures from executives at firms in the security industry. To add your firm to the letter, please provide your information online. If you have any other questions, email TMA Executive Director Celia T. Besore at cbesore@tma.us and affirm your consent to sign.]

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Track State and Local Government Response to COVID-19

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Find out what steps U.S. state and local governments are taking to combat the spread of COVID-19.

A link to the state-by-state tracker has been added to TMA’s dedicated repository of information and resources to assist and support members.

READ MORE

Urgent News From UL for Monitoring Centers

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UL Statement on Certifications to the US Alarm Monitoring Industry

As developments around the coronavirus COVID-19 continue to evolve, UL has been asked how health risk mitigation techniques might impact Alarm Service Certifications, especially those that involve quarantine, social distancing, work from home, and similar.

At UL, our driving mission is to help create safe living and working conditions for all of our constituencies. This value shapes our Standards and program policies. The emergence of the COVID-19 virus presents a new challenge, but by working together, we can find ways forward.

As in the past, after natural disasters such as hurricane Katrina, superstorm Sandy and others, actions taken to maintain monitoring operations may temporarily be out of sync with the current language of UL827, Central Station Services. In emergency situations like these, know that UL’s primary concern is for the health and safety of your staff and customers. If circumstances prevent you from complying with the written requirements of the Standard for staffing a station, we simply ask that for now, you document your station’s alternate procedure and when it went into/out of practice.

UL is working with industry to develop reasonable guidelines and alternative operating methods for scenarios such as the current COVID-19 outbreak. An initial draft is attached to this statement and will be updated as improvements are identified. These guidelines will eventually form the basis of revisions to UL827 to address pandemic-type scenarios better.

Please note that for US based stations monitoring National Industrial Security System accounts, any deviations from UL827 language need to be discussed with and approved by the relevant US federal security agency with jurisdiction.

UL’s current understanding is that due to the high risk nature of these systems, many Federal Security Agencies will not approve of monitoring outside a UL Certified Central Station operating room. If such monitoring is not available, it is likely defense contractors will have to react in the manner prescribed by the applicable security manual for instances where monitoring is not available or not employed.

At this time, we encourage monitoring stations to make contingency plans for operating in environments where operators are not able to physically come together to monitor signals in a central station operating room. There is a meaningful risk that the rapid spread of COVID-19 could trigger governmental movement and assemble recommendations/controls that would preclude normal station operation.

If you have questions or concerns, please contact Steve Schmit, steven.a.schmit@ul.com, 847-420-8032

In the current COVID-19 mitigation environment, central stations may be challenged to operate in strict compliance with UL Standards. UL expects that stations will make every reasonable effort to exercise options available in UL standards. However, in cases where delivering ongoing monitoring services requires alternate procedures, we request that stations document those procedures and be prepared to share them with UL if/when necessary as a basis for maintaining their UL Certification.

As a last resort, some stations may be considering use of home based operators to process signals. Based on input from industry, UL recommends considering the following guidelines.
Note – For US based stations monitoring National Industrial Security System accounts, any deviations from UL827 language need to be discussed with and approved by the relevant US federal security agency with jurisdiction.

UL’s current understanding is that many Federal Security Agencies will not approve of monitoring outside a UL Certified Central Station operating room. If such monitoring is not available, it is likely defense contractors will have to react in the manner prescribed by the applicable security manual for instances where monitoring is not available or not employed.

VIRTUAL WORKPLACE GUIDELINES

These guidelines are designed to provide procedural guidance to operators who perform job duties at alternative work sites, most specifically at home offices. The virtual work arrangement requires remote operators to be self-motivated and work well with minimal supervision. The following guidelines apply to the virtual environment:

  • Virtual workplace operators should be provided with a computer. Home/personal computers shall not be used.
  • Connections between virtual workplace computers and central station automation systems shall be made through a secure, encrypted virtual private network (VPN)
  • Internet speed may be affected by others in a home using the same internet. This may require an virtual workplace operators to suspend use of the internet by other individuals in the home.
  • Multifactor authentication should be required every 24 hours.
  • When not on shift, computer should be in shutdown and put in a secure place. This is to prevent any damage of theft of the computer.
  • When processing alarms the computer should be setup as not to allow others to view the monitoring screen or any other information.
  • When walking away from computer while on shift lock the screen so others cannot gain access to the monitoring window.
  • Virtual workplace operators are expected to have an appropriate workspace that is suitably designated for work and segregated in order to eliminate distraction and noise.
  • Due to the nature of virtual work arrangement, operators may not provide primary care for a child or dependent during the on duty hours except in the case of an emergency. The focus of an operator’s core working hours must remain on job performance and meeting business demands.
  • Virtual workplace operators are advised not to release their home address and telephone number to non-employees of the company.

Download PDFs:

  1. COVID-19 Statement & Guidelines for the Alarm Monitoring Industry in US
  2. COVID-19 Statement & Guidelines for the Alarm Monitoring Industry in Canada

Coronavirus Response Toolkit – U.S. Chamber of Commerce

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The U.S. Chamber has compiled CDC’s coronavirus recommendations for businesses and workers across the country. American businesses are encouraged to follow data-based guidance from the CDC and state and local officials. Visit the link below to find a shareable graphics based on the CDC’s latest guidance for businesses and employees. Share these assets on social media, websites, and other channels, and send them to your colleagues and employees. 

ACCESS THE TOOLKIT

White House proposes 5G funding boost for NTIA

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By John Hendel POLITICO

02/10/2020 01:59 PM EST

President Donald Trump is proposing that Congress provide an approximately 80 percent spending boost for the Commerce Department’s NTIA to help prepare the agency for 5G and other technological changes.

In its fiscal year 2021 budget request, the White House is asking for $72.2 million for NTIA, which has a lead role on 5G and telecom policy matters for the administration. That’s up from the roughly $40 million annually that the agency has generally received in recent years.

The request said $25 million would be slated for “modernizing spectrum management systems” and “proposes an increase to fund NTIA’s spectrum research for 5G and other evolving advanced communications innovations.”

The funding boost to spectrum management programs includes a focus on spectrum IT systems, which could help enable the government to identify federally held airwaves that could be freed up for commercial use.

The budget request is also in line with Trump’s crackdown on Chinese telecom companies like Huawei and ZTE, which the administration regards as a threat. NTIA would receive more money for efforts to “mitigate, and manage supply chain risks to our nation’s telecommunications infrastructure,” which it said would “enable NTIA to drive and support the nation’s efforts to promote and protect our economic and national security in the fast approaching 5G environment.”

Lawmakers will have to decide how much to defer to the budget request.

NTIA has lacked a permanent administrator since the sudden resignation of David Redl last May.

FCC Concludes Sharing of Consumers’ Real-Time Location Data Violates Federal Law

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After an extended investigation, the FCC Enforcement Bureau has concluded that at least one wireless carrier apparently violated U.S. law by improperly disclosing consumers’ location data.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai announced the agency’s conclusion in a January 31 letter to Congress. While the letter did not identify any carriers by name, it confirmed that one or more Notice(s) of Apparent Liability for Forfeiture would be issued in the coming days in connection with the apparent violation(s). 

“I am committed to ensuring that all entities subject to our jurisdiction comply with the Communications Act and the FCC’s rules, including those that protect consumers’ sensitive information, such as real-time location data,” said Chairman Pai.

The security of consumers’ real-time location data is an issue that gained widespread attention in 2018 after press reports revealed that carriers including T-Mobile, Sprint and AT&T were selling phone geolocation services to outside companies.  While it is common knowledge that law enforcement agencies can track phones with a warrant to service providers or through the use of IMSI catchers (also known as “Stingrays”), what

journalists found was that data made available to asset tracking and other legitimate enterprise location service providers was being resold to a host of different private industries, ranging from car salesmen and property managers to bail bondsmen and bounty hunters, with little or no oversight.  Compounding this already highly unscrupulous business practice, this data was then being leaked and/or resold to black market data brokers. An investigation by Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) into the commercial relationships between Verizon and a pair of obscure data vendors found that one of Verizon’s indirect corporate customers, a prison phone company called Securus, had used Verizon’s customer location data in a system that effectively let correctional officers spy on millions of Americans.

Shortly after the reports surfaced, Verizon, AT&T and Sprint announced that they would no longer share customers’ location data with third-party companies who failed to adequately protect the data. The FCC took up the matter in early 2019 after FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel sent letters to major phone companies to confirm whether they lived up to their commitments to end these location aggregation services.

Commissioner Rosenworcel criticized the agency for its delay in taking enforcement action in a written statement..

“For more than a year, the FCC was silent after news reports alerted us that for just a few hundred dollars, shady middlemen could sell your location within a few hundred meters based on your wireless phone data. It’s chilling to consider what a black market could do with this data. It puts the safety and privacy of every American with a wireless phone at risk.

Today this agency finally announced that this was a violation of the law. Millions and millions of Americans use a wireless device every day and didn’t sign up for or consent to this surveillance. It’s a shame that it took so long for the FCC to reach a conclusion that was so obvious.”

While the focus of this violation investigation is on provision of location information to third party aggregators, one can wonder whether the FCC’s crackdown will cause the cellular carriers to be more difficult to deal with on the new direct provision arrangement we understand alarm companies have worked out for location info.

Verizon Rolls Out 5G…Trump Admin Names New 5G Tech Expert

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While the world has been celebrating the holiday season, 5G is making headlines!

President Donald Trump named Robert Blair, a security adviser to his acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, a key point person on 5G wireless technology. He will support 5G efforts led by White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow, who has staked out support for a market-driven approach to 5G deployment amid administration debates over the best strategy. 5G is a top priority for the Trump administration.

Carriers are racing to roll out 5G, and Verizon announced today that it’s reached its goal of launching the service in more than 30 US cities before the end of the year. In fact, 31 cities now have some access Verizon’s 5G network, along with 15 NFL stadiums.

Stay tuned for more 5G news!

The Fight Continues to Reclassify Public Safety Telecommunicators

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In July, APCO provided an update on the 9-1-1 SAVES Act, which would reclassify public safety telecommunicators as Protective Service Occupations (as opposed to administrative/clerical). The provisions of 9-1-1 SAVES were included in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), a separate bill that had passed the House of Representatives. As APCO explained, the process forward for the NDAA was complex and required reconciliation of the differing House and Senate versions of the bill.

According to a recent report, the final version of the NDAA will not include the reclassification provision. However, the standalone 9-1-1 SAVES Act remains alive. Bipartisan support continues to grow, with 114 U.S. Representatives and 26 U.S. Senators sponsoring the bills.

APCO will continue fighting for passage of the 9-1-1 SAVES Act. If you have not already done so, please encourage your Members of Congress to support the 9-1-1 SAVES Act.

TAKE ACTION NOW

Wage and Salary Survey Open

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The Monitoring Association’s (TMA) 2019 Wage and Salary Survey is now open. Companies from across the security industry are invited to participate in this year’s survey—from security dealers and system integrators to monitoring centers. The data collected will be compiled and analyzed by TRG Associates with final results being published and available for sale in aggregate form.

TMA membership is not a requirement for participation. All interested companies are highly encouraged to take part in the survey. TMA members will receive preferred pricing on the purchase of the final survey report, but all participating companies will receive a discount on the final report.

The survey seeks compensation and benefits information for these areas of responsibility:

  • Executive and Operational Management
  • Monitoring Center
  • Office Support
  • Sales & Marketing
  • Dealer & Customer Support
  • IT & Telecom Services

The survey link is https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/6LCBQJ3.

The deadline for survey completion is Friday, December. 13, 2019.

TMA Members Make SSN’s 2019 Top 40 Under 40

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Security industry news publication, Security Systems News, has traditionally released an annual list of it’s top “20 under 40” and included two classes, comprising 20 end users and 20 integrators. This year’s “40 under 40” class is made up of a diverse and talented mix of young professionals representing the next generation of leaders in security. Consultants were included for the first time, which added new depth and perspective to this year’s class, bringing all winners — consultants, integrators, monitoring professionals and end users — together into one “40 under 40” class.

The final list identifies 14 end users, 11 integrators, 10 consultants and six monitoring professionals.

Congratulations to the following TMA members who were named in Security Systems News  “40 under 40” for 2019:

Read the full feature online.