G4S UK & Ireland

About G4S UK & Ireland

G4S is one of the world's leading global, integrated security companies with over half a million employees specialising in the delivery of security services to customers across six continents. It provides integrated security services and products for a wide range of organisations and events across the UK, combining technology innovation and high-class manpower to provide a full end to end solution.

Its monitoring centre operates 24/7, identifying potential security threats to people, premises and assets, and is integrated with G4S’ guarding services, fire safety and security systems to provide a more complete solution. G4S UK and Ireland is also a member of a number of industry-leading accreditations and standards including NSI Gold and the BSIA.

More CCTV connections, more false alarms

Video monitoring is a growing division within G4S UK & Ireland’s service offering. It has seen a steady increase in customers and connections and, as a result, a significant increase in false alarm activity. While it has internal processes to deal with this type of activity, the uplift in alerts was beginning to have an impact on both staff and customer satisfaction.

The support we have received from Calipsa has been second to none. The process has been very efficient and the responsiveness on the Calipsa side has been fantastic. Overall, the experience has been very positive.

Curtis McClements
Head of Monitoring Operations UKI

During night shifts, especially in poor weather, G4S operators were often receiving over 300 alarms a night from just one site. This not only requires a significant amount of manpower to review the alarms, but also increases the risk of genuine incidents being missed. Operator fatigue, pressure and stress increases from handing alarms from the same site so many times. In some cases, operators were having to call customers at 3am in the morning to take high alarming cameras out of service.

Finding a product to support false alarm management

G4S wanted to find a service that would complement its existing processes to reduce false alerts and minimise the impact on end users. After receiving a demo of Calipsa and an example percentage of alarms that could be removed, G4S saw the potential of Calipsa’s False Alarm Filtering Platform. It engaged in a trial and saw 84% false alarm reduction.

While reviewing solutions on the market, Calipsa stood out due to the team’s passion, ease of use and simple set up. Initial concerns about what happens in the event of a missed incident were eased after a conversation about Calipsa’s high accuracy rate and comprehensive legal policies. G4S found the onboarding process was quick and adding sites via Calipsa’s integration with the Sentinel alarm receiving platform was simple.

G4S wouldn’t necessarily be first thought of as a CCTV ARC compared to others out there. However, with Calipsa we are able to wave the flag to we show we are legitimate in the space and have the tools and technology to succeed. Calipsa is a badge of honour in terms of credibility.

Paul Fitzgerald
Monitoring Account Director

The Calipsa buzzword

Since using Calipsa, G4S has maintained a false alarm reduction rate of 84%, allowing it to focus more time on genuine activations and less time on noise generated by false activations. It has become an added string to the bow, ensuring customers receive the highest level of service. In the control room it supports operators to manage their time better and focus more on real human movement activations rather than false alarms caused by tarpaulin or storms. G4S operators are now able to flag any site that has a spike in alarms to their team leaders to be added to Calipsa.

The Calipsa and Sentinel integration also opens up opportunities with different CCTV manufacturers. With Calipsa analytics, G4S can expand its span of attention and accept feeds from a wider range of products, supporting continued growth. G4S now plans to offer Calipsa as part of its video product suite and will use it as a lever to win more business. Calipsa helps to tick more boxes in G4S’ ability to monitor more video and will become an essential part technology included in tenders for public service contracts.