While home security systems keep your home safe whether you are there or not, you can add another layer of protection to them. This article is all about how strategically placed panic buttons can protect you and your family while you are home. They will also work whether or not the security system has been armed or not! That makes panic buttons indispensible tools when it comes to keeping your family secure.

How does a panic button work? The panic button is connected to an alarm that starts to blare when someone presses the button. Connect the alarm to a monitoring service and it will also have alerted the authorities of an emergency. Another added advantage to having a panic button is that it will also clue in your neighbors to what is happening. Security services also offer the option of silent alarms that will not put the safety of your family at jeopardy by escaping the intruder’s attention.

We at SWAT Protection Services have compiled a list of some places where you can place panic buttons:

Bedrooms

Most of our time while at home is spent in our bedrooms. If we are not sleeping, then we are using the computer, or watching television in there. Thus, it seems like a wise choice to place a panic button there. Make sure that you place it within easy reach of your bed so that you can press it even you have woken up groggy. A good idea is to conceal it under the bed. That way, there are fewer chances of you pressing up by accident.

Kitchens

Many families share at least one meal in the kitchen. This makes a kitchen a good candidate when you are looking for a place to install a panic button. Other reasons for doing that include cooking accidents can get immediate assistance if the panic button is right there in the kitchen. It is also quite likely that your landline is also located in there. You will already be heading there when calling for help and can also press the panic button in case of an emergency.

Safes

Often the reason an intruder will steal into a place is to burgle. Since a burglar will be looking to get their hands on any valuable items, such as cash and jewelry, they could be another location for a panic button. If you are at home during such an intrusion, then you could press the panic button and alert the authorities. This is especially true because a thief might ask you to open the safe or direct them to where you keep your cash. Again, pick a location where the button will not only be within reach, but also be concealed from prying eyes.

Other places to install panic buttons include:

• Home offices
• Garages
• Bathrooms
• Basements

The idea is to have panic buttons strategically installed in all the main living areas of your home. Pick locations where your family spends most of the time. Use fake plants, underside of tables, or the backside of decorative items as hiding places for the buttons.

Warehouses and distribution centers are the backbone of any business. From raw commodities to final products, all of the valuable and tangible assets are placed in these settings for a considerable time. That is why, for any business venture, it is necessary to have fool-proof security measures in place on these locations. Warehouses become more vulnerable to break-in and thefts when business is growing and more goods and items are placed under the shed.

There are some tips to improve the overall security of your warehouse or distribution center so that you can save your business from any potential losses.

Customized Access

Your warehouse or distribution center should have customized access which only allows authorized employees to enter the premises of the warehouse or distribution center. But the risk of theft remains there because many times these thefts are carried out by employees. For that you can make sure that the number of employees deployed in the building work in teams so that there will be fewer chances of sneaking the company items away. For visitors you can make an entry and exit log and every visitor will be required to fill it with all the necessary personal information.

Sort the Stored Items According to Their Value

There are some items in your warehouse that are more profitable than others. These may be commodities that are in high demand these days. For these types of more valuable items and products, make separate compartments in warehouses and distribution centers which have their own locking mechanisms so that it is not easily accessible to anyone.

Surveillance Through CCTV Cameras

A better way to keep an eye on your warehouse or distribution center is to install CCTV cameras all across the building so that it can be monitored 24/7. So in any case of break-in or theft it will be convenient for law enforcing agencies to catch those who are responsible.

Visibility and Lighting of The Interior

If a warehouse is illuminated with bright lights, it gives the impression that someone is watching the place, making burglars and thieves think twice before they try to rob you.

Likewise, the more visible the interior of the warehouse, the more it will stop burglars from breaking in. The visibility of a warehouse or distribution center can be increased through different measures like you can steer clear of the whole warehouse from entry and exit points from any visual obstacles. Mirrors can also be installed in the alleyways of the building for not only providing assistance to the loading drivers but also making it easy to catch thieves red handed.

Hiring A Security Personnel

Most of the break-ins and burglaries occur during night time, so it is better to get a night shift security guard. It is necessary to get the security guard from a reputable security service. The presence of security guards at the witching hours will discourage any potential burglar to carry out a misadventure.

Protecting your inventories from any theft is very important for your business to sustain and grow. To seek professional security advice and services for your warehouse or distribution center, you can contact us at Swat Protection or call us at 905-230-0865.

Construction sites are home to building materials and tools, and are often prone to theft. It is very difficult to secure these sites from thieves and burglars, who often steal tools and construction materials from these locations.

If an important tool is lost or stolen on a construction site, it has to be replaced, increasing the cost of the project while also increasing the cost in terms of increased insurance premiums. The theft can also result in the project being delayed. That is why it is necessary to secure the construction site to prevent any potential theft.

General Security Measures

You can start off by fencing the construction site, using warning sign boards and installing a well-lit system of lights. Don’t leave valuable building material and tools wide open on the construction site, instead bolt them after the working shift with tamper resistant locks. Also make a list of all the items present on the site and check that list everyday in order to make sure that you are not losing anything to theft or negligence.

Securing The Construction Equipment

Most of the construction equipment remains present on the site during the whole course of the project and that is why they remain hot favorites for theft. There are different ways to protect the equipment. The high price equipment such as generators and loaders can be secured through high tech security apparatus such as alarms, ignition and fuel cut-offs. If the construction site is hosting very expensive equipment for a long time, you can have the geofencing of your construction site from professional security services providers.

Registering The Equipment

It is a way to alleviate the burn of theft. By registering your valuable equipment, you will get more aided services of concerned law enforcement agencies of finding the stolen equipment of yours.

Only Contain Needful Items At The Site

Don’t stuff the construction site with the excess supply of items and commodities. You may want to get all the supplies for future but it will make your valuable constructions items more vulnerable to theft and loss.

Presence Of A Supervisor

Many times, the construction workers get dishonest and make an attempt to steal. To make them aware that they are being watched, it is very necessary to have a round-the-clock supervisor on the construction site who is more watchful of the workers’ behavior and conduct. The presence of a constant monitoring eye can prevent any potential burglaries or thefts.

Make One Entry And Exit Point

Make sure that the construction site does not have various entry or exit points. The most fitting way is to have only one entry and exit point for the whole site. It will make it easy to monitor everyone who enters and leaves the construction site.

You can secure your construction sites with our help. For more information on our service features, please contact Swat Protection or call us at 905-230-0865.

When we think about a vacation, we try to think of sunny beaches and margaritas. Nevertheless, other negative thoughts keep intruding and leaving home seems like such a hassle. We start thinking of all the security concerns we would have while away and end up staying home during the holidays. No more though; this article mentions all the things you need to do to ensure you have peace of mind while you’re away.

Shut It!

This may seem like the obvious thing to do but we would still like to mention it. Why, you ask? We include it because more than a quarter of all home intrusions are actually unforced! Surprised, right? We were too. Then, we proceeded with shutting all the windows and locking the doors in our home. Once you think you got them all, start checking all the locks all over again. Having the place locked down is one of the easiest but most overlooked deterrent.

Ask for It!

Ask a friend or neighbor to watch over your house before you leave for the holidays. The most effective way to ensure that all the watching happens is to ply said friend with lots and lots of cupcakes or wine, depending on their preference. When they are deep within a sugar coma or under the effects of imbibing, that is the time to ask them for the favor of driving by your home once every day and checking on the place.

Giving them the key to your house may also be a good idea, if you want them to water some plants or do you other favors. Also, include a key to your car with the house key, so they can move the vehicle if it needs to be moved.

Join It!

Join your neighborhood watch program and rack up favors. When it’s your turn, you can ask the other members to keep an eye on your house. If you must, bribe them with promises of souvenirs that you will be getting them from your trip.

Don’t Mention It!

This is a very important one. We have started sharing everything from insignificant details, such as binge watching a certain popular yet bloody show to more important ones on the social media. The problem with this much oversharing is that we forget how it can affect us. If you announce to the world your intentions of going somewhere during the holidays, you are actually telling veritable strangers that your home is empty! Share pictures and show off after you have returned and until then, try not mentioning it on the internet. The same precautions go for what you say on your answering machine or voice mail. Say that you cannot take their call as opposed to confirming your absence from your home.

Buy It!

Buy some peace of mind for when you are away from home by hiring a house sitter. However, look for people you can trust and start searching within the family and then your circle of friends first before hiring someone you do not know.

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Winter may be a favorite for your kids but as an adult, you know that you also need to be prepared for severe winter weather. One of the reasons behind that prepping remains the power outages that result from freezing rain, snow, and sleet due to winter storms. The accumulating snow acts as a barrier to teams from the power company responding to your calls and as restraint to their equipment. Meanwhile, you are stuck in your house without power to cook or even keep yourself warm. Following measures can help you during such a blackout. Interspersed are some other tips that can come in handy during these times.

Minimal Travel

Try to keep traveling to a minimal level in situations of power outages. A wise decision since the blackout-affected traffic and street lights could make staying on the road dangerous. Additionally, the inclement weather could have resulted in snow or ice encrusted roads that are difficult to maneuver on while fallen trees can make driving even more hazardous.

Matters of Eating

Depending on how long the storm lasts, you may or may not have enough food to last. Another pressing concern seems to center around the food that is already in your refrigerator. You do not want it to spoil either. Before winter arrives, stock your pantry with non-perishable items that you can enjoy during a power outage. Even more important is to have a manual can opener at hand.

If you are worried about the food in your refrigerator, here are some tips that will help during a power outage:

• Infrequent opening of refrigerator
• Finishing the refrigerator food first
• Monitoring signs of food spoilage before consumption
• Discarding all food if temperature falls below 40

Like your pantry, your freezer can be a good crutch during a power outage. At half-full, the freezer will keep the food from spoiling for a day and for 48 hours, if completely full. Save the food in your pantry for the last while the fridge food should be the first to go.

Keeping Things Warm

Bundle up once the heat is gone, using blankets, sweaters, and sweatshirts. If you have hats at hand, they will help you stay warm. Maintaining a fire in the fireplace will require cautionary measures associated with it and a working fireplace. Using a generator or coal burning stove inside your home is a bad idea on all fronts. If you must use one, then make sure to install battery-powered carbon monoxide detectors inside your home.

Water Troubles

Tap water may not be the usual purified kind if being used during a power outage. Boiling the water before using it is a precautionary measure that will kill off most bacteria.

Commercial buildings like shopping malls, community centers, and retail centers are mostly located in large areas. According to estimates, a majority of the Canadian shopping and retail centers are located at more than 10,000 sq.ft area. Apart from a few basic security tactics, it is difficult to employ the advance security tactics in such commercial buildings where the public has easy access.

The different types of security risks in commercial buildings include:

• Risk of asset theft
• Risk of terrorist activity
• Risk of customer or visitor security

Following are some security tips to apply in the commercial buildings and reduce all types of security risks.

1.    Identify the Risk

The most important step is to identify the risk using the following indicators.

1. A person carrying photos or video camera should not miss your eyes.
2. A person making drawings of different areas of the building
3. A person gathering building information from the employees, guards, managers, or shopkeepers
4. A person parking the vehicle in unauthorized area or illegally capturing a space in the parking lot
5. Unfamiliar employees wandering on the commercial property
6. Loss of identity card of any employee
7. Increment in threats
8. Unusual maintenance activity in the commercial building, especially of the HVAC unit
9. A person trying to enter the restricted areas
10. Anyone wearing unusual clothing, trying to hide something, or acting suspicious

2.    Prepare a Plan and Train Your Employees

It is necessary that you recruit all employees based on their good market reputation. After that, prepare a physical security plan as explained in our blog ‘How Physical Security Policy Helps Save Your Company Thousands of Dollars’. Make sure to include employee training course in the physical security policy. The course should also include tactics of responding to a terrorist attack.

An easier way is to hire a security firm that also provides training courses like SWAT Protection.

3.    Integrate Physical Security with Cyber Security Technology

Integrated physical and cyber security technology includes installing physical security equipment like CCTV Cameras. These equipments are operated by cyber services for uninterrupted monitoring and surveillance.

4.    Restrict Access

As a fact, it is almost impossible to restrict foreign access in commercial buildings like residential buildings. A number of tactics, like issuing entrance IDs, cannot be used in commercial buildings. Therefore, following techniques are helpful in restricting free access into the commercial buildings.

• Make sure to seal all the entrance points. These include entrance from doors and windows as well as entrance from unauthorized points like HVAC units.
• Limit the entrance points to one or two points only.
• Assign a physical security guard at the entrance point.
• Use modern detection devices for inspecting and monitoring the attendees.
• Test the digital and electronic devices regularly.
• Install modern locks with alarms on all gates. These locks are powered by cyber security and ring alarm when someone tries to open them illegally.

Along with these techniques, make sure to hire a responsible security firm for 100% protection of your commercial building, its assets, and your visitors and customers.

People keep weapons at home for a number of reasons. Some people find it cool, whereas others do not rely on their governments for their personal safety, and for some, keeping a weapon at home is their job requirement. Keeping a legal weapon is definitely not offensive or bad. However, keeping a legal weapon unsafely is definitely lethal for you and your family.

You might have already acquired your essential documents and licenses, but the following tips will help you to avoid any mishap due to a weapon, especially if you have kids at home.

Make Sure to Keep it Unloaded

You might have heard of incident, like a person shot killed while cleaning his gun. Such incidents happen when you keep your firearm loaded in the house or car. Keeping your weapon unloaded allows you to avoid any mishap, even if someone, including your kids, accidently picks it up.

Make It Locked, Safe-Locked!

A majority of the gun owners rely on its mechanical safety only, which is provided in the trigger. However, you can maximize the safety by using the cable lock as well. In the latter type, a steel cable blocks the firearm by creating a loop around it.

Keep them Safe

Remember that gun safety locks like cable locks do not prevent theft. Also, you need to keep the weapons out of the reach of children. For this, get a customized and unbreakable safety lock. A customized lock is unapproachable with master key. Most of these locks can be opened with a fingerprint scanner only. The modern locks have a lining of unbreakable glass inside the outer steel or aluminum shelf. You can also store your important documents in this shelf.

Store Them Separately

If you have more than one ammunition then make sure to store them in separate locks. It will help prevent foreign access to all ammunitions, in case of foreign intrusion.

Always Keep High Quality, Well-Maintained Ammunitions Only

The security services use their weapons regularly, which is why, they keep their weapons updated and well-maintained. However, weapons used for home safety are not as regularly used as the weapons of security services. High quality weapons have lesser chances of jams. But you need to maintain your weapons regularly to make sure that you do not miss a fire or find a jammed weapon in your safe, when needed.

Teach Kids

Remember that kids become more curious about things that are prohibited for them. This is why, you need to be a little tricky while teaching them. Many people believe that it is OK to hide the weapon instead of teaching your kid about it. Remember that the kid may come in contact to a weapon owned by your neighbor, friend, or anyone else. Safety is better than prevention. Make your kids safer with these tips:

• If you see a weapon, stop what you are doing and tell your elder about it
• Do not touch any kind of weapon, including the knife
• If another kids touches or pull out a gun, rush to their parents and tell them right away
• It is illegal for kids to touch the guns. The police will immediately know it as soon as you touch the gun

You might have many questions related with safety and weapons. SWAT Protection provides high-end personal training sessions along with security guard services.

From political parades to peace walks, kids love to become a part of these exciting, fun-filled activities. The following safety tips will help you to keep your kids safe during a parade.
Make a Chain
It is highly important to keep a track of the whereabouts of your child in a parade. Ask all your kids to make a chain by holding their hands. Child belts are also easily available in the market nowadays. The child wears one end of the belt and you can hold the other end to make sure that your kid is around you all the time.
Take Photographs
Today, the surrounding of most of the parades is secured with human chains or hurdles. It allows the management of parade to find a person in the parade. Choose a unique outfit or at least one unique item in your child’s outfit to easily distinguish them from others. These items may include face paints, headbands, shoes, or any other thing. Now, prepare your child for the parade and capture their photographs in your phone before leaving for the parade. If any mishap occurs, you can show these photographs to the management and show them the photographs of your kids to find them.
Review the Names and Numbers
Unfortunately, many parents do not train their kids for emergencies. The first step of training is to make your kids memorize their full name, their full name, age, address, and your phone number. Kids, elder than three years of age can easily memorize this information. Make sure that your kids have memorized this information. Ask them to revise the information in front of you. The management can easily hand over the kids to you if they are lost in the parade.
Prepare Your Kids
Elders may not admire the laws, but kids love to follow the instructions given for the elders. Prepare your kids for the parade by marking everything ‘legal’ and ‘official’:
• It is illegal to come on the road while the performers drive their rides.
• It is official that the kids will take care of their parents in this parade. The kids are responsible for the safety of their parents. Do you understand that?
• It is illegal for kids to go away with another stranger. Do not leave hands. Do not break the chain, even if you are eating.
• Kids, who do not remember the names and numbers of their parents, may not attend the parade.
Go in Groups
The parade administration has a list of people attending the parade, along with their information. You can make a group with your family members, friends, or colleagues, or contact the parade administration to refer you a reliable group of parade attendants.
Above all, you need to keep a check on the safety exits of the parade. Make sure to visit the parade site at least one day prior to the parade. It is helpful in escaping a terrorist attack.

Professional Monitoring – What It Is

If you have signed for a professional monitoring service, then you can expect round the clock protection throughout the year. The security is there regardless of your presence at home or if you are away.

Professional Monitoring – How It Works

You arm your security system and if the alarm is tripped at any time, the monitoring center is alerted to the intrusion. When that happens, a monitoring professional calls you on the two numbers that have been pre-decided on the activation of the monitoring service. When you pick up, the caller will ask you for your safe word, which is again a pre-selected word chosen when you activated the service.

If the safe word is the right one, the monitoring service will stop dispatching the police. If the safe word given to the caller is incorrect or the phone is not answered, your local police will be sent to your address. The caller who is pretending to you will not be clued in to the what is happening to ensure your safety.

Professional Monitoring – What It Does

Intrusions

A professional monitoring service will be monitoring your property. If they track down any sort of intrusion via the perimeter sensors, they will take action.

Smoke and Fires

If you have added smoke detectors to your home security system, then the professional monitoring service can also keep an eye out for incidents resulting in smoke and/or fire. Instead of just alerting you to what is happening, the service will intercept the detector’s signal and also call the fire brigade.

Emergencies

If you have signed up for a professional monitoring service, they can help keep your family safe and protected in other emergencies, as well. If you avail the option of panic buttons offered by similar services, you can add an extra layer of protection. Installed within easy reach of each family member, the panic buttons might be pressed in case of an emergency.The button will trigger an alarm, alerting the monitoring service and they will call you to make sure things are okay or if you need help to deal with the situation.

Professional Monitoring – Types

Most professional monitoring services offer two types of packages. The basic monitoring package consists of minimal services that are required to keep you and your home safe. Reasonably priced, such a package will mostly include two phone calls, dispatch of police or fire brigade in emergencies, as well as, ensuring your safety by calling your contacts, if you are not picking up.

Other elaborate packages include additional features, such as remote control of your system. Due to that feature, you will be able to get in touch with the system no matter where you are, provided you have internet access. Thus, you can make changes to your account using your phone, receive text messages or emails pertaining to the alarm set up at your place.

With a professional monitoring service, you can go through life assured that whether you are at home or not, it will be protected.