People's Post Claremont | Rondebosch - 17 November 2020

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CLAREMONT | RONDEBOSCH

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HOUT BAY | LITTLE MOWBRAY | ROSEBANK

Security app all the buzz NETTALIE VILJOEN NETTALIE.VILJOEN@MEDIA24.COM

T

he buzz surrounding a free security and safety app originally created for the Hout Bay area just seems to be getting bigger by the minute. Within a year, the app has gone from covering one suburb to 38 – and it is still growing. Little Mowbray and Rosebank are among the latest communities to adopt the app. Having officially joined on Thursday 1 October, the number of people living in these areas who have registered on the app already stand at 540. Dave Sivertsen, director of the Little Mowbray Rosebank Improvement District (LMRID) Board (security portfolio), says it would be great to have all the residents of the LMRID download the app and use it at every opportunity. “Only the residents of the LMRID area can make this Buzzer app work. The more people use Buzzer, the stronger and safer the community will become. For us to reduce crime we all need to work together, including the police, community policing forums, neighbourhood watches, improvement districts, ward committees, the City of Cape Town and its departments as well as the local security service providers,” Sivertsen says. People’s Post first reported on the app last year (“Buzzer rings in new era of safety”, 17 September 2019) when Buzzer played an integral part in the quick arrest of the first suspect in the murder of Ukrainian hiker Ivan Ivanon at East Fort, Chapman’s Peak Drive, in Hout Bay on Saturday 27 July 2019. At the time, Keri Cross, director of Community Crime Prevention (CCP) Hout Bay, explained that Buzzer was created for Hout Bay in co-operation with CCP and Watchcon. The first version of the app, which geolocates the exact point at where an incident has been reported, was launched in Hout Bay at the beginning of last year. Plans to roll out the app to other areas were first implemented in February. Since then, Cross says, the app has been rolled out across most of Cape Town and in holiday and student towns in the Western and Eastern Cape, including Plettenberg Bay, Grahamstown and Kenton on Sea. “Buzzer is being adopted in universities

Athule Gqadushe and Xola Nhama stand with Little Mowbray Rosebank Improvement District (LMRID) patrol vehicles. The LMRID control room monitors the Buzzer app for both zones. and high schools too. Each area is different, in many areas the local security company that was already responding to community calls for help have taken on Buzzer as an easier and better option than the ‘noisy’ WhatsApp groups. In a few areas, the local neighbourhood watch (NHW) has implemented Buzzer. Three City improvement districts have taken the app for their residents. In a lot of the areas, more than one organisation is using Buzzer,” Cross adds. As to why it was felt that Buzzer would be a good fit for the communities of Little Mowbray and Rosebank, Sivertsen explains that both the Little Mowbray and the Rosebank NHWs were running two separate security WhatsApp groups which was monitored by the LMRID control room in Mowbray. “Our WhatsApp security groups had reached the maximum subscribers. We had numerous discussions on how we could improve our communication, quick responses from the control room and identify the exact location from where the alert was activated,” Sivertsen explains. He says the Buzzer app offered all of this.

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A steering committee was set up to drive the implementation of the app. According to Sivertsen, each NHW is the custodian of its respective Buzzer zones. “We are split into two separate zones but the control room monitors both zones, as does the operations manager, operations supervisor and the admins of the Buzzer groups. It links LMRID, both NHW’s and all other responders to receive alerts from nearby incidents, the exact location of the alerts, who is responding to the incident and where other responders are,” he says. The app has two main functions – sending out an SOS for danger, a medical emergency or fires and reporting suspicious activities or persons, municipal faults, traffic alerts and snake spotting. It also has a test facility. After an incident is reported, Buzzer sends an alert to the LMRID control room where the controller immediately contacts the person who raised the alert as well as with an LMRID patrol vehicle or any other emergency department required. A signal is also sent to other Buzzer users in the direct vicinity. Cross says they have seen an amazing de-

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crease in crime and an increase in communication in the areas using the app. “The areas that have seriously benefited from Buzzer are those where the local security, CID or, at a minimum, the neighbourhood watch was brought into Buzzer and are the admins. That being said, even if an area does not link in the local security it can still use Buzzer as long as more than 15 residents have downloaded it. We have seen it work, but not as well as when the local security is involved.” The Buzzer app is free for residents to download from Google Play Store or App Store. “All we would need is the GPS coordinates of a new area and then you would need to get your neighbours to sign up and unlock your area. This unlock process is done to ensure there are enough people if someone calls for help,” Cross explains. When asked what is next for Buzzer, Cross says future growth plans include rolling out across South Africa. “In fact, we are currently rolling out in parts of Namibia, the UK (United Kingdom) and the USA (United States of America) – so, who knows, maybe the world,” she says.

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