BlackBerry AtHoc Public Safety Edition Provides Local Governments and Universities Ability to Securely Communicate Critical Information Directly to their Community

  • Sep 23, 2020

BlackBerry Limited today announced the BlackBerry® AtHoc® Public Safety edition, providing local governments and universities proven capabilities to deliver critical communications directly to the public in an accurate, secure and trusted manner. As part of their critical event management programs, BlackBerry AtHoc Public Safety edition enables public leaders to rapidly disseminate critical information to everyone in an affected area to keep their communities informed and safe.

Severe weather events, and other major occurrences like rolling blackouts, traffic advisories, public health emergencies and civil unrest impact the public. BlackBerry has supported local governments through crises including earthquakes in Latin America, hurricanes on the Gulf Coast, tornadoes in the Great Plains and wildfires on the West Coast. The AtHoc Public Safety edition builds on this experience to provide a complete cloud-based critical event communication system in a secure, easily managed and cost-effective manner.

"Over the past decade, BlackBerry has successfully provided local governments with the tools needed to quickly notify residents and share timely critical information to keep people safe. We are excited to announce the addition of the BlackBerry AtHoc Public Safety edition to help leaders more effectively protect the public," said Christoph Erdmann, senior vice president of Secure Communications at BlackBerry. "The solution can be deployed quickly to enable the most secure real-time information notifications to the community, so that people can make informed and safety-critical decisions in times of crisis."

Public safety requires a concerted effort by many people, teams and organizations. BlackBerry AtHoc can bridge the gap between employees, the public, and essential services when critical information needs to be delivered quickly and reliably. Official notifications can be sent through multiple channels including Apps, SMS, RF enabled sirens, digital signage, radio and TV to quickly reach everyone within a specified geography at the time of the communication. Residents also can self-register to receive additional enhanced notifications based on event types of interest to them.

Designed for the diverse population needs of local governments and universities, the SaaS offering operates from a certified secure cloud, can be up and running quickly, provides ADA 508 accessibility compliance and multiple language support and can connect into the notification networks of other organizations with a public safety mission. Fixed cost affordable pricing is available based on the size of the community that needs to be communicated with. BlackBerry AtHoc has cloud instances in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, France and the Netherlands to comply with local data residency mandates.

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