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Team-Up Aims to Give 911 Dispatch Access to Camera Feeds

CentralSquare and Genetec are integrating their public safety software together in the latest of a long string of gov tech company partnerships this year. This move is meant to improve awareness of emergency responders.

Add one more pair to the current avalanche of partnerships between gov tech companies: Two big players in public safety software, CentralSquare and Genetec, are teaming up.

The move will see CentralSquare integrate its computer-aided dispatch into Genetec software such as the decision support system Citigraf and evidence management system Clearance. CentralSquare is billing the move as a way to make it easier for emergency responders to, among other things, access camera feeds when they receive a 911 call.

“As a result of this partnership, when a citizen calls 911, dispatchers will be able to seamlessly see what is happening at the caller’s location, ensure the right type of emergency response is dispatched, improve the situational awareness and safety of the responding officer and have an integrated video record of the incident for future investigations,” CentralSquare CEO Simon Angove said in a statement.

Aside from joining in on the frenzy of gov tech corporate partnerships, the partnership also taps into a larger movement in the industry to break down barriers between various data silos. By knocking down the various barriers that exist between data streams — different software programs with different logins, varying formats for the same data, etc. — integrations can cut down on the time and manual effort public-sector employees spend on gathering the information they need before they can act.

CentralSquare, the recent result of several technology firms merging, is one of the largest gov tech companies on the market in North America, while Genetec is a more diversified company with a presence across several verticals and continents.

Ben Miller is the associate editor of data and business for Government Technology. His reporting experience includes breaking news, business, community features and technical subjects. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in journalism from the Reynolds School of Journalism at the University of Nevada, Reno, and lives in Sacramento, Calif.