What is Enhanced Call Verification?

Enhanced Call Verification (ECV) is a procedure that the alarm industry developed after police and city officials across the United States considered going to the Verified Response monitoring policy. With Verified Response, police would respond to a burglary alarm only after a witness verified a crime or attempted crime has taken place. This procedure may lower the amount of false alarms but it would also significantly reduce the effectiveness of security systems.

With ECV (also referred to as Multiple Call Verification) the central monitoring station attempts to verify the burglary alarm before dispatching the police by calling a minimum of two separate telephone numbers. The first attempt is a verification call to the premises. If no responsible party is available, a second call is made to a cell phone or to an alternate number provided. (Since most false alarms occur arming or disarming the system it makes sense that someone is either on the premise or has recently left and (s)he should be available on a cell phone.) If there is still no one available to verify the alarm is false, the police will be called.

For any city and it's residents, false alarms are costly and time consuming as they place additional burden on police resources and take their time away from more serious situations. With the implementation of the ECV, false alarms have been reduced by as much as 50% according to studies conducted over the past decade. In fact, the National Sheriffs Association (NSA) endorsed ECV as a "proven and effective way to reduce unnecessary calls for service" during their membership meeting in June 2011 according to a July 15, 2011 press release.

The City of Leawood is currently the only ordinance in the Kansas City metro area that is requiring ECV for their residents but many of the other cities are moving toward this practice. As a false alarm reduction crusader, Atronic Alarms strongly suggests to all alarm users to set their emergency call lists up with the ECV in mind by providing at least two current phone numbers that would be called before the police are dispatched.

ECV applies only to burglary alarm signals and does not apply to fire, panic or hold-up. For more information on ECV or to review your emergency call list with Atronic Alarms, contact us at 913.362.0000.

Note: Atronic Alarms, Inc. boasts an industry low false alarm rate which led to receiving the Police Dispatch Quality Award (PDQ) in 2009, a National award honoring alarm companies dedicated to reducing false alarms.