In my early years in 911, I remember watching a panel of red LEDs, each light representing a commercial alarm signal. That panel served as a direct extension of the site’s security system, designed to trigger a swift response to potential criminal activity. Times have sure changed — or have they?

For decades, the relationship between alarm monitoring companies and public safety agencies — particularly law enforcement — has been fraught with challenges. While both sides share a common goal of protecting people and property, their collaboration has often been hindered by issues such as false alarms, miscommunication, and lack of standardization. The introduction of the AVS-01 standard, developed by The Monitoring Association (TMA), offers a promising solution to many of these longstanding challenges.

Historical Friction Points

One of the most persistent problems in the alarm monitoring and public safety dynamic has been the prevalence of false alarms. Industry estimates suggest that between 90-99 percent of alarm activations reported to emergency services turn out to be false or non-critical. This overwhelming volume of unnecessary dispatches places a significant burden on already stretched law enforcement and dispatch personnel. In many jurisdictions, this has led to fines for repeat false alarms, strained relations between alarm companies and public safety, and, in some cases, policies that deprioritize or even ignore certain alarm calls altogether.

Another major issue has been the lack of consistency in how alarm signals are classified and communicated. Without a standardized language or protocol, alarm monitoring centers may describe incidents in ways that don’t clearly convey the urgency or nature of the event to 911 operators or first responders. This ambiguity can lead to delays, inefficient resource allocation, and even missed emergencies.

Introducing AVS-01

In response to these challenges, TMA introduced the Alarm Validation Scoring Standard — AVS-01. This protocol represents a significant step forward in creating a common framework for how alarm events are assessed, scored, and relayed to emergency services.

AVS-01 is designed to standardize the information that monitoring centers provide to public safety answering points (PSAPs) and 911 Emergency Communications Centers (ECCs). The core innovation of the standard lies in its scoring system, which assigns a threat level (from 0 to 4) based on the available evidence of an actual threat or crime in progress. For example:

• Level 0: No threat; alarm was canceled; no request for police response.
• Level 1: Unverified; police response request with no or limited additional information.
• Level 2: Police response request with confirmed or ‘highly probable’ human presence with unknown intent.
• Level 3: Police response request with confirmed threat to property.
• Level 4: Police response request with confirmed threat to life.

By adopting this uniform classification system, monitoring centers can provide PSAPs with a clearer and more actionable understanding of the situation, enabling emergency services to prioritize calls based on threat levels rather than generic alarm types.

As a Board Member of PPVAR (Partnership for Priority Verified Alarm Response), I regularly engage with law enforcement agencies and Emergency Communication Centers to raise awareness about the AVS-01 standard.

Recently, I spoke with a sheriff whose department covers a large geographic area with limited personnel. He had made the decision to stop responding to residential burglar alarm calls, citing that most were false alarms and that responding consumed valuable time due to the long distances involved. He was unfamiliar with AVS-01, so I provided an overview of the standard, explained how the process works, and shared the training resources.

After learning how AVS-01 helps prioritize and verify alarm events, he is now considering responding to Level 3 and Level 4 alarms.

How AVS-01 Bridges the Divide

AVS-01 addresses many of the key pain points that have traditionally strained the alarm monitoring-public safety relationship:

• Reduces False Alarm Impact: With its scoring system, AVS-01 helps authorities distinguish between unverified alerts and credible threats, reducing the risk of unnecessary dispatches.
• Enhances Communication: Standardized language and clearly defined threat levels improve the clarity and efficiency of information shared with first responders. AVS-01 is also transmitted using TMA’s ASAP Service.
• Improves Resource Allocation: Law enforcement and emergency agencies can make better-informed decisions about how to deploy personnel and prioritize responses.
• Builds Trust: By demonstrating a commitment to accuracy and public safety collaboration, alarm monitoring companies can rebuild trust with agencies that have become skeptical of alarm reliability.

The Path Forward

Adoption of AVS-01 is still in progress across the industry, but early feedback from both monitoring centers and public safety professionals has been positive. As more agencies and companies embrace the standard, it has the potential to transform how alarm events are understood and managed — turning a once-contentious relationship into a true partnership in public safety. By standardizing communication and validating alarm events, it lays the pathway for a safer, more responsive, efficient, and cooperative emergency response ecosystem.