CentralSquare Partners with Genetec Inc. to Enable First Responders to Connect with Cameras

Partnership will enable law, police and EMS to quickly connect with the nearest public camera and respond smartly based on the specific situation, potentially preventing more than 2,000 homicides.

  • Oct 09, 2019

CentralSquare announced today it has entered into a partnership with Genetec Inc., a provider of technology for unified security, public safety and operations.

The partnership brings together CentralSquare’s broad and unified Public Safety Enterprise and Pro suites and flagship products from Genetec, including Genetec Citigraf™ and Genetec Clearance™. Combining these two technologies will enable public safety agencies across North America to smartly use existing public and private video cameras to reduce the number of victims of crimes and disaster while ensuring the safety of police officers and first responders.

There are more than 30 million cameras across the United States that generate 4 billion hours of footage a week. Unfortunately, the footage from these cameras and other sensors such as gunshot detection systems is captured by various systems and is often unavailable to first responders who can use that real-time data and video to save lives. Further, when a citizen calls 911, the dispatcher often has to rely on the caller’s description of the incident instead of quickly pulling up the video feed from the nearest cameras and sensors. Additionally, with the increase in digital evidence captured by these systems, investigations are becoming increasingly complex and time consuming. These disconnects prevent first responders from quickly assessing, understanding and safely responding to life-threatening emergencies.

CentralSquare provides an integrated public safety suite that manages everything from receiving a 911 call, dispatching responders, managing the records of the incident and providing tools for corrective actions. Genetec provides a powerful software backbone that not only allows cities to manage video surveillance for hundreds to thousands of cameras, but also provides the ability to gain strategic, data-driven insights pulled from a range of critical data sources.

This partnership marks a critical shift away from siloed and ineffective video surveillance towards a smarter future that unifies critical, lifesaving data into a single pane of glass. As public safety concerns such as active-shooter incidents have increased by over 30 times since 2000, and natural disasters such as wildfires have destroyed more than 8 million acres in 2018 alone, the need for powerful tools to aid rapid and meaningful response is urgent.

This new partnership between CentralSquare and Genetec delivers proven technology for police officers and emergency responders so that they can make effective decisions, based on real-time data, when and where it is most needed.

“As a result of this partnership, when a citizen calls 911, dispatchers will be able to seamlessly see what is happening at the caller’s location, ensure the right type of emergency response is dispatched, improve the situational awareness and safety of the responding officer, and have an integrated video record of the incident for future investigations,” said CentralSquare CEO Simon Angove. “By seamlessly integrating CentralSquare’s world-class Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) software with Genetec’s ground-breaking, real-time crime center technologies, we are enabling thousands of public safety agencies to speed-up dispatch center operations, shorten emergency response time, and reduce the number of victims of crimes and disasters across North America.”

“Cities today rely on disparate, often disconnected, systems and information to make critical, lifesaving decisions,” said Guy Chenard, chief commercial officer of Genetec. “By working closely with a leader in public safety software like CentralSquare, we are able to bring the most advanced data-driven policing software and digital evidence management systems to an even broader array of customers. Together, we are delivering a powerful solution that will better equip our country’s police officers and first responders and ultimately make our cities safer, smarter, and more livable.”

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