Halo Solutions, one of the UK’s leading crowd safety and security platforms, is to make its award-winning safety technology available to help make universities safer places and to help protect female students, tackle crime and protestor activity.
The company, which is currently providing its technology to Birmingham City University campuses, is in discussions with a number of universities across the UK following growing concerns about female safety on campuses, criminal activity and a spate of non-student protestor activity in protest over the war in Gaza.
CEO of Halo Solutions, Lloyd Major, a former National Counter Terrorism Police Officer and crowd safety specialist, said: “Whilst legitimate protests are allowed to take place, and the cornerstone of any vibrant, thriving democracy, the recent protestor barricade over Gaza at the University Of Manchester, which was carried out by a large group of protestors (many of whom were not students), has highlighted how vulnerable UK universities are to such actions. Only last month, police in public order uniform (riot gear) stormed Columbia University in New York and arrested 100 protestors.”
The Halo technology provides a ‘whole university’ approach to delivering enhanced safety and security on campus by delivering safe and secure environments for students, staff and property across the entire estate. The Halo system, which is widely used to protect the public across stadiums, arenas and across travel and transport infrastructure, is also designed for use across university campuses and higher education faculties.
Halo’s technology, which recently won a King’s Enterprise Award for Innovation, is also an essential crowd safety and security technology that addresses the requirements of the upcoming ‘Martyn’s Law’ (Protect Duty). This UK-wide legislation places a requirement on venues and those operating public spaces to consider the threat of terrorism and implement appropriate and proportionate mitigation measures to protect the public.
The system provides real-time monitoring of incidents for security teams and university staff across multiple campuses and provides reassurance for students and staff on campus on security and safety. Uniquely the Halo system offers student ‘self-reporting’ of incidents without the need to log onto the Halo system. By synchronising multiple feeds of information, from security checks and CCTV to body cams and other key communications it improves decision-making and enables faster response times to incidents, especially in critical events such as university lockdowns or emergencies.
“Halo has public safety and security at its core, so that when a dynamic and fast-moving incident occurs it can be managed quickly and effectively with the safety of staff and students first and foremost. The protection of property, buildings, infrastructure and facilities is exactly what Halo is designed to do at its core,” said Major.
“We designed Halo as a software technology that would be easy to use and able to integrate into existing systems to help protect everyone. By providing real-time information and merging multiple sources of data and intelligence, it enables faster decision-making to help mitigate risks. Now more than ever, universities face a growing number of risks that threaten student and staff safety. Protestor activity, increased theft, violence and robbery, the safety of women on campuses, extremism and terrorism are all very real threats.”