The false alarm problem police already know.
Police departments have been dealing with unverified burglar alarms for decades. Most of them are not crimes: pets, wind, bad door contacts, employees who forgot the code. Wikipedia’s summary of the research on security alarms puts it bluntly: between 94% and 98% of alarm calls to law enforcement are false alarms. The same article notes that some U.S. municipalities require alarm verification before police are dispatched, and many fine owners for repeat false alarms.
The result is predictable. In many jurisdictions an unverified alarm is a low-priority call, and officers get there when they get there. For a guard company or monitoring center, that means the alarm signal alone is no longer enough to get a fast response for the client.
Why verified alarms change the priority.
A verified alarm is one where someone has confirmed, with video, audio or an eyewitness, that a crime is actually happening. That changes how the call is treated. The Partnership for Priority Video Alarm Response (PPVAR), which brings law enforcement, insurers and the alarm industry together, states that video and audio verified alarms are seen by law enforcement as crimes in progress and that police are immediately sent to the scene. Officers respond knowing there is someone there, which is also safer for them.
Local policy decides the details, and it differs between agencies. What does not differ is the logic: a dispatcher who hears a specific, observed description will prioritize it over a sensor code.
What “verified” looks like from the monitoring desk.
- Alarm or alert arrives. From an intrusion panel, an analytics alert or the guard’s own observation.
- Guard reviews video immediately. The frames that triggered it, the live view, and adjacent cameras.
- Confirm a person and intent. A person on a closed site, forcing a door, carrying property out. Not a shadow, not the cleaner on the authorized list.
- Call it in as a crime in progress. With the specifics below.
- Keep watching and update. Direction of travel, vehicle, number of people, until officers arrive.
Speed matters at every step. A verification that takes minutes because the guard has to find the right camera, scrub a recording or wait on an AI pipeline is a verification that arrives after the suspects have left.
What evidence to capture for the call and the case.
- For the dispatcher: address and entry point, number of people, what they are doing right now, descriptions (build, clothing, anything carried), vehicles and plates, weapons if seen, direction of travel.
- For responding officers: where on site the suspects are, which gate or door is open, where the keyholder will meet them.
- For the report: the first frame showing the person, the clearest frames of each person and vehicle, the camera name and timestamp for each, and the times of the call and arrival.
- For prosecution and insurance: original, unaltered footage, preserved with a record of who exported it and when. See incident report video evidence.
Agree the verification procedure with each client and, where possible, with the local agency. Write it into the post orders: what counts as verified, who calls, and what they say.
Unverified alarms carry a cost beyond wasted patrols. See false alarm fines and verified-response ordinances for how cities penalize repeat false alarms.
Where Semaphor fits.
Semaphor gets the guard to the verification moment faster. Start with what Semaphor is. It watches the monitoring screens your team already uses and runs person and vehicle detection on every visible camera. The preliminary alert publishes immediately — guards never wait on the AI to see that something moved — and an AI scene report follows on the same card with what is happening and what is uncertain. The guard looks, confirms and calls it in.
Every alert keeps the original frames with exact SHA-256 hashes, perceptual hashes and source timestamps, beside the AI assessment, exportable as a JSON manifest: the evidence and audit trail that backs up the call afterwards. That is why remote video monitoring centers use Semaphor to verify more alarms across more sites with the same operators. See it on your own camera screens: start a pilot or book a live demo.
Alarm verification FAQ
What is a video-verified alarm?
An alarm where a monitoring operator has reviewed video and confirmed a real person or crime before calling police, instead of dispatching on the sensor signal alone.
Do police respond faster to video-verified alarms?
Many agencies treat verified alarms as crimes in progress and give them higher priority than unverified alarms. Policies vary by jurisdiction, so check with the local agency.
What should a monitoring operator tell the police dispatcher?
That a crime is in progress, the address and entry point, how many people, what they are doing, descriptions, vehicles, weapons if seen and direction of travel. Stay on the cameras and give updates.
Does Semaphor call the police automatically?
No. Semaphor surfaces the event with evidence; the guard verifies and decides whether to dispatch.