McLEAN, Va. – The Monitoring Association (TMA) is seeking participants to take part in the development of a new American National Standard (ANS): TMA-VMS-01 Monitoring Center Video Procedural Standard (TMA-VMS-01).
This project “defines normalized and repeatable procedures for video alarm monitoring center services, to efficiently and effectively process video-based events, for which there is accompanying multimedia data such as live video, video clips, still-frame images and audio,” according to the TMA announcement.
The main objective “is to define minimum requirements to assure repeatable decision-making protocols that classify the risk and/or threat, so that appropriate action is initiated,” the announcement says.
“There is significant expansion of alarm monitoring center services that primarily reply on video surveillance systems—often enhanced by artificial intelligence, to detect, analyze and respond to unusual or potentially dangerous behaviors captured on camera,” according to the joint announcement.
These events “often require notification to a responding entity, such as public safety law enforcement,” the announcement says.
What is Involved in the TMA ANS Committee?
This proposed standard is complementary to other American National Standards that standardize the manner and terminology used when such notifications are made. Standardized protocols and explicit minimum-effort workflows are needed to ensure monitoring centers “can efficiently and consistently interpret these media-initiated alarms that lead to timely, clear and uniform response outcomes,” according to the announcement.
ANSI guidelines require that standards development committees have proper “balance” so that no single interest category dominates the group or process to the exclusion of fair and equitable consideration of other viewpoints.
The proper balance of committee members will be achieved through sufficient representation from three primary interest categories:
- User: a person or organization who directly or indirectly utilize services or products described in the standard;
- Producer: a person or organization that directly or indirectly produce, manufacture or distribute products or develop services which may be described in the standard; and
- General Interest: a person who has expressed a general interest in the content of the standard.
Specifically, the proposed interest categories are alarm monitoring, public safety, installer/maintainer, special expert, service provider and manufacturer/software provider.
Membership in TMA is not required to participate as a committee member. Additionally, anyone may offer comments on the draft standard without being a committee member or a TMA member. ANSI and TMA procedures require equal consideration of all comments.
TMA leadership will determine the number of committee members with consideration to the number of applications received, balanced with the need to ensure the group can work effectively and efficiently.
The committee will be asked to complete their initial draft of the standard within 120 days of the first committee meeting. Following completion of the draft document, committee participation for an additional three- to six-month period will be required during the public review and comment phase and for completion of the final draft.
Complete the online form if you are interested in being considered for membership on the TMA-VMS-01 committee at https://tma.us/standards/vms-01/. For more information, email [email protected] or contact Bryan Ginn, TMA staff liaison for standards, at [email protected] or by phone at 703-660-4919.
