Protecting Yourself
A new standard emerges for personal security
For more than a century, the security industry
has been providing anti-burglary and home
monitoring services to homeowners. Today, traditional
alarm and security monitoring services
protect roughly 15 percent of American
homes and a handful of rental units. The market
has grown incrementally in the past decade
with the advent of personal emergency monitoring,
but these systems are bulky and require
a static location.
So, what does this $28 billion industry need to do to double or triple
their adoption numbers in the next decade? Shift their primary focus
away from the protection of property and valuables to the real value
proposition...protecting the person, their family and loved ones everywhere,
all of the time.
In 2012, the mobile personal security (mPERS) market emerged,
harnessing the power and features of smartphones, smart mobile
devices and increased throughput of global cellular and public WAN
networks. The rapid growth and maturation of mobile personal security
market is born from the timely convergence of the mobile app
distribution standard and the burgeoning bring your own device
(BYOD) environment, creating an opportunity for unlimited easy,
low-cost adoption and usage of professionally monitored mobile personal
security systems.
This new app-based mobile personal safety and security standard
transcends all previous security monitoring models because it’s no longer
bound by a location, equipment and service calls. It goes with the
family, employees and students everywhere they go, and it will continue
to evolve and integrate even deeper into the smart-home.
Mobile personal safety and security will also expand far beyond the
current user demographic and include adolescents, elderly and the “invincible” young adult as well as corporate America, allowing families
and businesses, to be professionally monitored anywhere they may
travel domestically and around the globe. The key then becomes not if
an mPERS solution is right, but more of a what’s the best fit? What
features, services and monitoring works best for my family, university
or corporation?
The answer is pretty clear in today’s market when comparing current
service providers. Almost all current offerings provide GPS tracking
and monitoring. However, market and sector leading companies,
such as EmergenSee, bSafe and Guardly offer a much more complete
suite of features in their solution.
EmergenSee is like the “Swiss army knife” of mobile personal safety
and security.
“The last year has been a blur with development, fundraising, sales
and presentations,” said Jason D. Friedbert president of EmergenSee.
“We are committed to providing the best possible mobile personal
security solution that’s incredibly fast and easy-to-use, and is, literally,
in the palm of your hands.”
Numerous appearances and interviews by Phil Reitnour, founder
and CEO and Friedbert, on television and radio shows across the
country, and appearing recently on ABC’s Shark Tank, have laid the
groundwork for communicating the importance of mobile personal
safety to millions.
Guardly safety app functions as a way to communicate with friends,
family and authorities when you need help. The app transmits GPS
location and allows users to communicate with members in a preselected
safety group, security personnel or 911 authorities.
The bSafe app allows the user to be in constant communication with
their pre-selected friends and contacts. This app allows the user to feel
as though they are never alone. The technology behind this app allows
users to be proactive in handling potentially dangerous situations.
Looking more deeply at mobile personal security, the question of
markets and areas of usage inevitably arises. As is evidenced by security
and alarm company websites and commercials, the offerings and
use cases for these mPERS apps are endless. Along with the main focus
of the everyday consumer, we are seeing quicker adoption and acceptance
in areas like higher education and primary education; lone workers,
such as real estate, energy and landscape services; transportation,
railways and subways, and interstate systems; healthcare and NVA;
stadiums & large event venues; and government, to name a few.
It is inevitable that, at some point in all of our lives, we will be alone
and feel unsafe or need assistance or witness an incident, accident or
crime, and this type of mobile solution makes a big difference. The
adoption of mobile personal security monitoring by malls and large
corporations, for their employees, while on campus, or at their site will
continue to expand and drive adoption and usage.
The Importance of Personal Security
The importance of personal security has to do with the peace of mind
that comes with knowing that your family and your employees are all
as protected as possible from various types of events.
If someone tries to attack a person while walking, he or she now has
a security device that can personally activate depending on the situation.
With a personal security system app, you can go about your day
and evening, knowing that you’re just a tap away from getting the help
you need in a dangerous or life-threatening situation.
Family, Friends and the Elderly Community
How many times have you put on the news and heard about another
child being abducted? How many times have you heard over the past
30 days of a road rage incident that has turned into a murder? How
often do you hear of assaults and rapes of young students on campus?
Or abuse and neglect in nursing homes? All of these situations can
now be combated with this new mobile technology.
Each one of us can arm ourselves and our loved ones with personal
security technology on our smartphones that, with just one tap, can
instantly reach the help you need so the proper authorities can come to
the rescue.
Colleges and Universities
More and more universities are adding this new mobile technology
into their existing security systems to create an additional layer of
safety for all students, faculty and visitors.
Campus crime is a huge problem in our country and has been
underreported, as these major institutions do not want their stellar
reputations tarnished. Recently, the U.S. Department of Education
published the final rules to carry out changes to the Clergy Act, requiring
colleges and universities to collect and disclose crime statistics
about the number of reported crimes that were investigated and determined
to be unfounded.
In addition to new laws mandating stricter guidelines for campus
crime, adding this new mobile security technology solution will now
give every single student access to immediate help when in a dangerous
situation. With this mobile security technology, if a young female
student on campus is walking from the library to her dorm and someone
is coming up upon her from behind, she can just tap the app and
her exact situation will immediately signal campus security. Then campus
security will receive an alert, and an exact visual of the situational
experience, including GPS coordinates, so they can dispatch the
immediate help that is required.
Corporations, Loan Workers
and Government Agencies
We are all living under extreme stresses now more than ever before.
With the real estate crash and jobless claims still at a high level, there
are more workplace crimes occurring that are violent and deadly. This
new mobile technology is helping with mass notification alerts, signaling
entire work forces to stay clear of a certain location. Real estate
agents across the country are now adopting this new personal security
system technology, so that they can feel safer going out on calls, meeting
strangers at vacant homes and lots. Government agencies are
adopting this new technology and are incorporating it into their lone
work forces that are out on the road all day long.
Why now?
The mPERS market combines the ease of mobile app usage with the
availability of the BYOD environment. Smartphones, smart mobile
devices and high bandwidth cellular and wireless networks are increasing
and expanding around the globe. The market for this type of solution
is growing, as our police and first responders are increasingly
overburdened.
Based on a recent Pew Research study, 58 percent of all American
adults have a smartphone. This equates to over 100 million adults
between the ages of 18 to 65 years are using smartphone technology as
of January 2013.
These apps allow the user to maintain his or her security from anywhere
at anytime, in the palm of their hand, regardless
of the situation. Real life situational experiences
can be sent directly to professional monitoring centers,
campus security and personal pre-selected contacts,
so that the help you need will be dispatched, to
provide the exact help that is needed.
This article originally appeared in the issue of .