Effective July 1, 2018 your alarm companies and monitoring agencies must comply with the new alarm verification process prior to requesting a police response. Only alarm companies that comply with the Verified Alarm Response Program procedures will be able to request a police response to your residence or commercial premise. It is your responsibility to ensure that your alarm company is participating in this program.
Residents and businesses will no longer be assessed a fee for police response to a false alarm. Additionally, effective that date, alarm companies will no longer be required to register their customer information with the NRPS. Instead alarm companies will be required to answer a structured sequence of questions which includes confirmation that the intrusion alarm has been verified.
The no fee Verified Alarm Response Program (VARP) provides that an Alarm Company or Monitoring
Service must verify an intrusion alarm using at least one of the following criteria prior to requesting police
emergency response:
a. Audio sensors that provide the Alarm Company or Monitoring Service with the ability to confirm criminal activity by the sounds detected within the premise;
b. A video system that provides the Alarm Company or Monitoring Service with the ability to confirm criminal activity through visual images;
c. Confirmation made by an Owner, a person to whom the Owner has provided a key, an alternate response agency, or a witness on scene who can confirm the existence of a suspected criminal act; or
d. Multiple activation points and the Alarm Company, Monitoring Service or monitoring system determines the manner or sequence of activation indicates that suspected criminal activity is, or has taken place.
The VARP also provides:
I. if the Alarm company is reporting a panic/duress or hold-up alarm that emergency response would be initiated without the need for verification, and
II. should a member of the public call in an audible alarm with no suspicious circumstances that the incident would be given a low priority and responded to as a noise complaint
Outstanding Alarm Fees
Any members of the public or businesses who have outstanding unpaid fees for false alarms will be contacted directly by a collections agency. We are no longer accepting payment for the fees associated to false alarms.