Changes to NSW Police Response to Alarms

16 Dec 2009

The NSW Police Force has advised of further changes to its Direct Access Service (DAS) alarm response policy, in addition to the information circulated in July 2009.  This initiative is designed to help focus available police resources on attending genuine serious or potentially serious incidents.

The latest amendments generally relate to Hold Up Alarms', and can be summarised as follows:

1. Portable wireless device activations, including pendants, can only be reported to NSW Police Force as DURESS alarms – never as ‘Hold Up’ alarms.

2. NSW Police Force definition of Hold Up alarms: Must be purpose-designed/manufactured dual action devices and must be permanently affixed to a solid surface. Temporary fixtures, such as Velcro or double-sided tape, do not constitute a permanent fixture.

3. Hold Up alarm devices as defined by NSW Police Force may connect back to the alarm panel using either hard wiring or wireless communication. Wherever practicable, they should be equipped with a manual reset function.

4. NSW Police Force must only be requested to attend Hold Up alarms for commercial premises with approved activation devices in accordance with Schedule One of the Direct Access Service. All residential button alarm activations are to be classified as Duress without exception.

5. ‘Key Pad’ or ‘Code Pad’ alarms must not be reported to NSW Police Force as ‘Hold Up’ alarms – they are to be classified as Duress alarms at all premises.

6. High risk customers: Schedule One of the Direct Access Service defines what constitutes a high risk premise for the purpose of requesting a NSW Police Force response. If a monitored alarm customer falls outside the definitions as listed in the Schedule, but believe they fall into a high risk category, they are invited to submit their reasoning and justification in writing to their monitoring company, which will make an application to NSW Police Force on behalf of their customer for consideration.

7. Alarms at premises listed in Schedule Two of the Direct Access Service must be verified to determine whether a crime is in progress, in which case the DAS may be accessed via the dedicated numbers. For notification of completed alarm events, the premises owner (or their representative) should call 131 444 to report the incident and obtain a police Crime Event Number.

For a full document, please click here.

If you have any questions regarding how these changes will affect your security, please contact your SNP Security Account Manager or email our customer service team.

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