The COVID-19 pandemic presents numerous unprecedented challenges to the monitoring industry and those with a stake in the protection services it provides. Not the least of these is operating in a regulated environment, under standards that did not fully anticipate the impact of public health mitigations.

At last, 2021 is here — I can’t be the only one happy to leave 2020 in the dust! The year brought so many changes to the business of monitoring, our heads haven’t stopped spinning. With the COVID-19 pandemic, and the unemployment numbers that unfortunately came along with it, providing peace of mind has never been more important.

Communication — both with end users and emergency personnel — has always been an essential part of any monitoring business. The methods through which monitoring centers communicate, though, have become incredibly varied.

As the technology of video monitoring grows in capabilities and use cases, another concern begins raising its head: privacy. Recently, some countries have looked to use this capability to help with the coronavirus outbreak and enforcing stay-at-home and social distancing mandates.

Benjamin Franklin is reported to have said, “Out of adversity comes opportunity.” The security industry, like many businesses in the U.S. and the world, has certainly seen some adversity this year. In the video monitoring part of the security industry, however, a situation that started as chaos quickly shifted to unique opportunities to help both existing and new customers.

Recently everyone has learned to live in what seems to be a new world, and in many ways, we have all succumbed to change in one way or another.

Nine years after its 2011 launch, The Monitoring Association’s (TMA) Automated Secure Alarm Protocol (ASAP) service is slowly — but surely — creeping into monitoring centers everywhere.

SureView Systems, a provider of physical security software automation, has developed a new API that will allow AI technology to seamlessly integrate to its Immix software suite to reduce the number of false or nuisance alarms that hit a central station operator queue.

National Monitoring Center (NMC) announced the hire of Mark Matlock as vice president of sales.

This year at TMA’s annual meeting in Napa Valley, I led a panel on telecommunication opportunities available through leveraging modern technologies while holding on and winding down older technologies to support legacy systems and communications.