PUBLIC SAFETY
TRANSFORMING SAFETY THROUGH TECHNOLOGY GLOBAL DANGERS CREATE CONSENSUS FOR CHANGE
Motorola Solutions, in partnership with independent researchers at Goldsmiths, University of London, has conducted a global research study that discovers how the pandemic has changed our expectations for safety while fuelling technology adoption and innovation.
T
he extraordinary conditions of the global health crisis have made two things clear: safety is now seen as a collective responsibility across public safety agencies, industry and society; plus, technology can play a far greater role in keeping us safe. The Consensus for Change citizen survey found that 88% of citizens globally want to see public safety transformed through the use of advanced technology. The research also discovers how the pandemic sparked “high-velocity innovation for public safety agencies and businesses, especially in the areas of cloud adoption, video usage and interoperability between disparate organisations and systems, while reconfirming the need for reliable and resilient communications”.
In uncertain times, citizens place higher expectations on their public safety agencies to keep them safe. Prior to the pandemic, many organisations were looking to technology as part of their plans to modernise through digital transformation. As the research revealed, those plans and the deployment of new technologies have been accelerated by the constantly evolving public health crisis. Citizen Survey highlights: • 74% agree using technology increases the productivity and efficiency of emergency services. • 68% say the pandemic increased the need for safety technology. • 71% of citizens say advanced technologies, such as video cameras, data analytics, cybersecurity and the cloud,
18 Critical Comms - November/December 2021
are needed to address challenges of the modern world.
Adapting technology to respond to new threats Police Scotland has been relying on technology for some time to improve the way they capture and store evidence and have saved many thousands of hours for their officers. It initially deployed smart mobile applications to enable officers to use their mobile devices instead of paper-based methods of filing reports and incident details. But it was not until the pandemic that they realised the same technology could enable social distancing in the field. San Diego County Sheriff’s Department benefited from a vast and interoperable
This issue is sponsored by — ROHDE & SCHWARZ — http://www.rohde-schwarz.com.au