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On April 16, 2007 the Virginia Tech University experienced one of the worst school massacres in North American history, when Seung-Hui Cho, a student at Virginia Tech, killed 32 students and staff and left an additional 17 wounded. Unfortunately, much of the carnage perpetrated by Cho, could have been prevented had the university and campus security notified the student body sooner. This is because the attacks on Virginia Tech were carried out in two stages. At 9:24 am, Cho murdered two students in Virginia Tech’s residence hall and two hours and twenty minutes later Cho killed another 30 people. Consequently, after the first two murders, the university waited a full two hours before employing their Emergency Notification System in order to alert students of the shooting that had just occurred. This emergency notification was sent too late, as 20 minutes later, 30 more students were killed. Furthermore, the content of the emergency notification that was sent out to students lacked clarity and did not emphasize the urgency of the situation. Specifically the message sent out to students only stated that there had been a shooting and did not specify that those shot were murdered and that the killer had not been identified.
As a result of the incompetence of the Virginia Tech’s administration, which failed to prevent or mitigate the severity of this attack, they were forced to pay the victims’ families $3.7 million in a lawsuit settlement. Furthermore, these financial costs are only a fraction of the total amount spent by Virginia Tech on improved security and renovations, counselling services, and a public relations campaign. The total financial cost, according to the Washington Post, amounted to $42.8 million. Obviously, the financial cost cannot be compared to the human cost of this tragedy and the suffering and destruction of human life that occurred. However, it is important to factor all the costs related to this type of attack when universities implement risk management strategies in order to reduce the chances of this type of tragedy from occurring on their campuses.
Consequently, while Virginia Tech has spent millions in an attempt to provide some form of compensation for the victims and their families and improve campus security so that this type of attack does not happen again, no amount of money can be enough to compensate for the loss of life and repair Virginia Tech’s damaged public image. The loss of reputation that Virginia Tech suffered as a result of the shooting cannot be gauged through simple utilitarian calculations. Specifically, Virginia Tech is equated, in the eyes of many, with feelings of danger and fear and thus the massacre has immeasurably damaged the Virginia Tech public image. An example of how deeply the Virginia Tech reputation has been damaged is the type of content that surfaces on Google related to Virginia Tech. Specifically, when a user searches for Virginia Tech, the Wikipedia entry of the massacre is one of the first few links. This of course is just one of the thousands of articles online which give the perception that Virginia Tech is dangerous. If further research is conducted, it becomes clear that not only are these damaging articles prominently surfacing when people search for Virginia Tech online, but that hundreds of thousands of people every month are searching on Google for information related to the Virginia Tech massacre. For example, Google’s keyword tool which estimates monthly traffic volumes for a given search query shows that 135,000 people search for the term “Virginia Tech shooting” each month.
Most universities which have not had a massacre on campus of this scale and do not have this type of damaging content online nor do they have to worry about people searching for information about a terrible event in its history. Thus, Virginia Tech’s damaged reputation, the severe financial loss and most importantly the destruction of human life should be motivators to any school administrator to implement effective risk management strategies in order to prevent an attack like this from occurring on their campuses. When developing optimal risk management strategies that can reduce violent attacks on campus, it is important that universities employ the most effective security protocols and integrate cutting-edge technology into their Emergency Mass Notification Systems. Having both protocols that allow campus security staff to completely respond to emergencies and technology which allows for complex interactions between students, staff and security, can prevent another Virginia Tech-like attack from occurring.
Our company, Guardly, is deeply aware of these challenges that schools face and has developed its Safe Campus program to deliver an end-to-end solution for students and campus police to broadcast, respond and manage, and resolve emergencies quickly and efficiently on campus. Guardly is a mobile application which effectively turns your student’s smartphone into an emergency blue light phone. Using Guardly on your campus allows your students to immediately notify your campus security services and a custom group of contacts should an emergency occur. For example, in the instance of a Virginia Tech-like attack on campus, students and staff using Guardly’s GPS and location-aware technology can immediately notify campus police and a custom group of contacts with their exact location. Further, students or staff who experience an emergency can communicate with campus police and their contacts by phone call and secure instant messaging, allowing what could be dangerous situations to be easily conveyed. Using Guardly on campus can both improve the response time of first-responders and increase the quality of communication between students, staff and security personnel during these emergencies. Guardly Safe Campus can assist in mitigating the impact of an attack against human life on campus, helping to reduce both the human and financial costs which come as a result of such horrific attacks.
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Preventing crimes and making sure students feel safe on campus are two of the most important objectives of any campus security organization. We at Guardly have composed a list of the top 25 measures that college security staff can employ to maintain in school safety.
1. If you do not already have a mass notification system then ensure you install one as soon as possible.
Mass notification systems are highly prevalent among colleges and universities across North America. For example, a study conducted by Siemens of 77 high-learning institutions found that every single one had some type of mass notification system. MNS systems help prevent crime and we at Guardly recommend that security professionals investigate how they benefit campus safety.
2. When the school year starts send a mass notification to every student with the contact information for campus security services.
3. Make sure health facilities are up to date and that there is a campus physician on-staff at all times.
The incidence of contagious diseases being spread on health facilities is startling. In fact, according to the Center for Disease Control there are 7 million infections and 99,000 deaths annually in the United States during hospital visits. Therefore, having extremely clean and modern campus health facilities with a campus doctor available 24/7 will improve the health of your whole college.
4. Make note of the places on campus where the most crimes occur and increase your security presence in those targeted areas.
This increase may include extra security patrols and/or the installation of cctv cameras and emergency phones. Many universities realize the importance of increasing their security presence on university campuses. For example, a report by Purdue university recommends doubling the amount of security cameras on-campus.
5. In order to increase in school safety, ensure that the school administrators and professors are kept fully up-to-date on all criminal activity on campus.
The staff and professors of your universities are in many cases on campus more than your school’s students and as a matter of personal-safety, they have a right to know if there is a crime committed on campus. Additionally, they are instrumental in managing your school and communicating with the student population. Therefore, keeping them up-to-date on all criminal activity on campus will help them craft school policy, administer budgets and communicate with students, in such as way as to always keep in mind concerns about criminal acts on campus.
6. Make sure to employ the latest technology to protect your campus. Mobile applications such as Guardly can help your students feel safe at school. Using Guardly, your students can immediately notify on-campus security, with their location, should they experience an emergency.
Venture-backed, Guardly has partnerships across North America and has featured such as the Financial Post, Yahoo News and the Huffington Post. Guardly provides a very cost-effective method of turning your student’s smartphone into a blue light emergency phone which will exponentially improve college campus security.
7. Organize self-defense classes on campus.
For example, the university of Ottawa has an on-campus self-defense program called Rape Aggression Defense. This program, which costing $20, is affordable for all students, specializes in teaching women self-defense in case of an attack on campus. The program is well integrated with school counselling services and the program instructors are well versed in the sensitivities towards students who may have been survivors of sexual violence.
8. Promote a zero-tolerance policy for sexual harassment, drugs, and other common on campus crimes.
9. Encourage female students to always keep pepper spray in case of an attack.
10. Ensure there is proper lighting on paths and secluded sections on campus.
Having well lit paths is very important to maintaining and improving college campus security. For example, A university of Minnesota study of its Duluth campus suggested that improving the lighting systems around certain targeted areas around campus could help reduce crime.
11. Check to make sure your campus’ wifi is always working so students can use personal safety applications, such as Guardly, in case of an emergency.
The internet and mobile technologies have provided people with better ways to keep safe on campus. Location-based personal safety applications such as Guardly are committed to take advantage of these technological breakthroughs.
12. Frequently inspect your cctv cameras and emergency phones, ensuring your security equipment is working properly.
13. Provide top-notch training for new hires and continuing education for your more experienced security staff, in order to have well trained security personnel who can effectively combat crime on-campus.
14. In compliance with the Clearly Act make sure all crimes are reported to the proper authorities and that the campus community is made aware of all crimes committed.
Jeanne Clearly was a 19 year old freshman who was raped and murdered on campus in 1986. In response the this heinous crime the federal government introduced a bill that demands universities gather and report all crimes committed on, or near the school’s campus.
15. Encourage respect for cultural diversity on campus. Develop cross-cultural learning opportunities for students and implement a zero-tolerance policy for hate crimes.
16. Maintain a security escort or a walk-safe program for students walking alone at night in order to improve in school safety.
York university has a program called goSAFE which is staffed completely by university students. This program allows anyone on campus between the hours of 6:00pm to 2:00am to be safely escorted by a student to their class, residence, vehicle or any other place on campus. Using Guardly’s personal-safety application can help improve your walk-safe program. This is because a student who feels the need to be escorted on-campus, can instantly contact your walk-safe program and you will immediately know the student’s location, increasing the efficiency and speed at which the student can be reached by one of your staff members.
17. Provide a special ombudsman who can address issues such as sexual harassment and gender discrimination.
18. Ensure your campus complies with your school’s or your local government’s accessibility standards, including the American Disability Act, by making sure your campus is accessible for people with disabilities. To meet these requirements, ensure that you have installed necessary equipment including ramps, elevators, emergency phones or virtual emergency phones like Guardly.
The American Disability Act states that “ no individual may be discriminated against on the basis of disability” and this type of accommodation is applicable to post-secondary institutions. Guardly helps you keep in compliance with the ADA because it provides your students with a powerful way to instantly communicate with you should a disabled student experience an emergency on campus related to their disability.
19. Create and instill a harmonious relationship with local businesses and residential neighbourhoods close to campus. This could include informing the local community should on campus crimes occur and fostering dialogue with representatives of local businesses and neighbourhoods.
For example, Boston University has a top notch community outreach program. Its mission statement exemplifies the program’s goal to improve their community. Specifically it states that “The Community Service Center aims to provide the Boston University community with opportunities to address and improve the critical concerns of Greater Boston” This initiative has strengthened the ties between Boston University and the local community and is clearly beneficial to campus safety.
20. Increase your college campus security presence during events where crimes are more likely to occur, such as heated political demonstrations or your school’s pub night.
21. Maintain close ties with your school’s student council ensuring that you keep them up to date on all campus security matters.
22. Conduct yearly audits and always look for ways to improve in school safety.
The Clearly Act mandates that campus security professionals compile annual statistics on crimes committed on campus. Consequently, personal safety applications such as Guardly can help you compile the data needed for your reports. Specifically, when a student sets off a Guardly alert you will immediately receive their exact location, medical profile and be able to maintain constant communication throughout the emergency. Therefore, using Guardly increases your ability to monitor and respond to crimes committed on campus, dramatically improving your data collection and reporting schemes.
23. Have a zero-tolerance policy for racial profiling amongst your college security staff.
24. Install large emergency signs and maps around campus for students and staff, in order to help them feel safe on campus and provide instructions to students in case of an emergency.
25. Make sure all fire alarms and smoke detectors are working and up to date. Conduct yearly fire drills in order to ensure that your campus community is well prepared for any type of emergency.
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To combat depression in college students it is vital that universities create safety protocols to ensure that students receive immediate medical assistance should their mental state spiral downward. This is one of the most important college health issues and most universities have on-campus physicians and psychiatrists, who can help students overcome severe outbreaks of depression. To treat depression in college students, many universities provide accommodations should the student be unable to attend class due to severe depression. However, despite the accommodations and health-care access that many universities offer students with depression, the current provisions adopted by most schools do not provide adequate protections when an outbreak of depression turns into a medical emergency.
The unfortunate reality is that symptoms for depression can increase and decrease in severity at a moments notice and could demand immediate medical care and/or hospitalization. When a student’s depression leads to a medical emergency, there are currently two primary methods they can use to contact first responders. First, students can use campus emergency phones, which are generally located inside buildings and sparsely along university campus paths; these emergency phones connect students directly to campus security by phone call. Second, students experiencing medical emergencies can use a landline or mobile phone to call 911. The major problem with both of these methods is that they do not provide first responders with important information about the student’s medical illness or prescribed medications, except for what the student may have been able to communicate during the emergency call. Consequently, a student who is making an emergency call due to severe depression cannot be relied upon to convey the precise nature of his or her condition. For example, they may have fainted, become disoriented or could be suicidal. Furthermore, given the fact that many students who attend university live away from home, contacting their families or friends, who may have a better understanding of their condition, could prove to be difficult, if not impossible.
The inability to gather information from a student who is experiencing an emergency, demands a breakthrough technological solution that can immediately provide a student’s medical information to first responders.
Enter Guardly, a venture-backed Toronto start-up with a cutting edge application that solves this and many other college health issues. Guardly, through its Safe Campus Program, offers campus police and public safety departments a game-changing platform to immediately gather medical information about a student undergoing a mental health emergency. Guardly allows students to fill their medical information into a profile so that first responders have a detailed medical history of any student who uses the application. Therefore, when a student with a severe outbreak of depression sets off an emergency alert with Guardly, first responders will know the student’s exact health profile and will be able to provide improved, potentially life-saving treatment.
Guardly’s mobile application can be used by a student experiencing an emergency to instantly contact campus security, emergency services, and custom groups of people who will be informed when an emergency alert is triggered. Students who have a mental illnesses can group people who may have a specialized understanding of their condition, such as a their family physician, psychiatrist or other mental health practitioner. These people, who may be well acquainted with the student’s medical condition, can offer potentially life-saving information to first responders and university health officials. Depression in college students is a serious mental health issue and Guardly provides schools with a cost-effective mobile emergency response solution that can really help save lives.
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For many Americans and Canadians, the ability to call 911 for help in an emergency is one of the main reasons they own a mobile phone. In the US, the number of 911 calls placed by people using wireless phones has significantly increased in recent years. It is estimated that about 70 percent of 911 calls are placed from wireless phones, and that percentage is growing.
First, let’s understand the problem.
The FCC’s concern with mobile location detection
“While wireless phones can be an important public safety tool, they also create unique challenges for emergency response personnel and wireless service providers. Since wireless phones are mobile, they are not associated with one fixed location or address. While the location of the cell site closest to the 911 caller may provide a general indication of the caller’s location, that information is not usually specific enough for rescue personnel to deliver assistance to the caller quickly.”
Source: http://www.fcc.gov/guides/wireless-911-services
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has adopted rules aimed at improving the reliability of wireless 911 services and the accuracy of the location information transmitted with a wireless 911 call; however, even with Enhanced 9-1-1 (E911) Phase II, location accuracy is not very precise — especially when in urban centres. E911 Phase II mandates that location accuracy be within 300 meters, and be transmitted to 911 within six minutes of a request by a public service answering point (PSAP). That’s a long time!
How Guardly Improves Location Finding
First and foremost, Guardly uses GPS and WiFi hotspot lookups to give you the most accurate location readings. It will use Assisted-GPS (AGPS) as a back-up system, when GPS is not available. Beyond on-device sensors, Guardly allows you to configure predefined locations and manually confirm your location at any time.
Configure Guardly Locations
Guardly helps you to predefine a number of locations in your profile, along with some additional information that can be valuable to responders. Locations such as home, work, cottage, partner’s house and hotel can provide meaningful context to responders when your location becomes available on the map. You can add additional details such as suite/room numbers and buzzer/access codes — to further improve accessibility by your responders.
Guardly Location Confirm
During an emergency, if the Guardly app detects that your location accuracy is off by more than 50 meters, it will ask you to manually confirm your location for your responders. This is as simple as dragging and dropping a pin on a map. Your location will be transmitted as a confirmed location, which is extremely valuable.
By including these additional features, Guardly allows your responders to call 911 on your behalf and relay time-sensitive rescue information more reliably. When Next Generation 9-1-1 (NG9-1-1) becomes available, Guardly will be ready and willing to send your information to the 911 authority as soon as we know you make a confirmed 911 call requesting for their assistance. However, a functional and nationwide NG9-1-1 infrastructure is still a few years away.
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Once an emergency has happened, it’s easy to look back and say “I should have been more prepared.” Guardly helps you prepare for emergencies by setting up effective groups, running practice simulations and ensuring that you have a complete profile.
Your Guardly Profile is an opportunity to disclose important information about yourself that will be made available to your responders in case of emergency.
Here are a few pointers:
Photo
If you believe the saying, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” — start off by capturing and uploading a photo of yourself.
Contact Details
Even though Guardly will connect you with your responders, be sure to include your contact information, including up-to-date telephone numbers and email address. Once an emergency has ended, it is common for responders to want to get in contact with you however possible.
Physical and Medical Information
Guardly allows you to share your physical information such as eye color, hair color, height, weight and blood type — information that is important to quickly disseminate in cases of kidnappings or amber alerts. For people with medical concerns and conditions, your Guardly Profile can store information about known medical conditions, medications and allergies as well as your doctor’s name and phone number and your insurance plan and policy number.
Remember: In an emergency, it’s imperative that your Guardly Groups have access to your personal information that can prove beneficial in an emergency. If your emergency is a medical event, these details are extremely important for paramedics and other rescuers to know in case they need to administer new drugs on-site. So please be proactive and keep your safety group informed. Be sure to review your profile every three months to ensure it remains accurate.
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We’ve been out speaking to customers and we’ve listened to feedback about how we can keep improving our Guardly mobile clients.
Location tracking technologies have come a long way in the last couple decades, but most mobile phones lack GPS sensors that are accurate all the time. Depending on your location, there may be buildings or other objects interfering with your phone’s direct line-of-sight to the GPS satellite network, and this can affect the accuracy reading of your exact location.
Today, Guardly announces Location Confirm for iOS devices. Location Confirm will detect the accuracy of your GPS readings and prompt you to refine your location on a map if necessary. Refining your location can be done with a simple drag-and-drop gesture. This will reinforce to your responder group that you are indeed where your mobile device says you are.
With this update to our location tracking and reporting technology, we hope to further decrease the amount of time it takes for first and secondary responders to reach our customers if and when they use Guardly to broadcast a request for help or assistance.
In our most recent update, Guardly also brings supports for iOS5 devices. Download it here.
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As the world surveys the damage dealt by the recent earthquake and Hurricane Irene, the Guardly Team is doing our best to learn from this experience to further enhance the mobile safety options available to people during an emergency.
When disaster strikes, one of the first things we do is reach for the phone: whether it’s to make a call for help, or alert loved ones of impending danger, phones have become an essential part of our emergency toolkits.
However, during a natural disaster, our heavy reliance on phones can lead to a shutdown of the vital networks that sustain them.
Case in point being the August 23 earthquake. Immediately following the tremors, several mobile phone providers reported heavy call volume, which led to network congestion, call spikes and service disruptions for up to an hour. Cellular relay stations have a limit on the number of calls they can simultaneously handle. Furthermore, calls of emergency response personnel are given priority on the network. This can result in one’s call getting cut off, or not going through at all.
Aside from voice calling, cell phone users have other lines of communication available to them in the course of an emergency. Short Message Service (SMS) texts require a fraction of the bandwidth of a call and can be typed anywhere at anytime. Emails are another alternative, as long as a wireless connection is available.
Guardly’s mobile personal safety app brings all of these avenues together: with just one-tap on their phone, users can call, text and email contacts in their personal safety network, as well as dial 911. And if users experience a service disruption, Guardly will continue to search for a network and automatically resend all alerts once a connection has been established.
Visit the Guardly website to find out more. Guardly is available on iPhone, BlackBerry and Windows Phone 7 smartphones. Guardly for Android is in development and will be announced shortly. Stay safe!
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Tuesday saw the launch of Guardly for Windows Phone 7. We’re super-excited to finally be on Microsoft’s dynamic new smartphone platform. Guardly worked very closely with Microsoft and our app looks fantastic in Windows Phone 7′s Metro user interface.
The Guardly mobile app team was hugely impressed by the maturity of the tools for Windows Phone, which shortened our development time dramatically. Windows Phone clean and simple user interface streamlined our decision-making process and really helped to ensure that Guardly created an elegant, easy to use application. And when it came to time to submit Guardly for review by Microsoft, their AppHub proved to be one of the better submission sites with remarkably short wait times.
Our team is now focused on updating Guardly to take advantage of the next release of the Windows Phone OS code-named “Mango.”
Our launch on Windows Phone 7 is also timely. The media has been absolutely gushing about Windows Phone 7. ZDNet ‘s Matthew Miller recently wrote, “I have been using Windows Phone 7 since July 2010 and can say without a doubt that Windows Phone 7 has been the most stable and reliable mobile phone operating system I have ever used, even counting the early technical preview and current beta development versions of Mango that I have been running on my phones.” We’ve been impressed with all the new Windows Phone handsets and if you’ve never tried one — it’s time you did.
We hope all Windows Phone 7 users will take advantage of Guardly to stay safe.
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