Police force policy changes for monitored intruder alarms

Since July 2002 it has been a condition of level 1 police response that all intruder alarm systems monitored by ARC’s (Alarm Receiving Centres) must be installed to comply with legislative document DD243 and have the capability of sending “confirmed” signals to the ARC. This has also applied to systems that had been taken off level 1 response due to an unacceptable number of false alarms. These systems have had to be upgraded to provide confirmed technology before police forces would reinstate level 1 response.

“Confirmed” means that a signal must be received from two separate means of detection within the system before the activation is passed to the police.

This policy change has helped to significantly reduce the number of false alarms attended by Police Forces across the country, allowing them to provide a more efficient response to genuine alarms and better deployment of their resources.

As a logical progression to reduce false alarms further and therefore improve use of their resources Nottinghamshire Police are the first constabulary to extend this policy change to include all intruder alarm systems that signal activations to an ARC.

This change comes into force on 1st April 2006. It will mean that any systems requiring police response to signalled intruder activations that currently can not produce “confirmed” signals will need to be upgraded.