Why do Police Treat Unverified Alarms as Low Priority?
Many Canadian police services have shifted how they respond to alarm activations, especially unverified ones, because the vast majority of alarm signals they receive aren’t real emergencies.
High False-Alarm Volumes are a Strain on Police Resources
In jurisdictions across Canada, police services have found that most alarm activations are false alarms, which means officers are frequently being dispatched for calls that don’t require police intervention. For example, the Toronto Police Service reports that roughly 97% of alarm activations they receive are identified as false, leading them to change how they handle alarm response so that officers can focus on real emergencies and higher-priority calls.
In Western Canada, police services such as the North Vancouver RCMP also note that they receive thousands of alarm reports each year with only a very small percentage resulting from actual criminal activity.
What is Verified Alarm Response, and Why it Matters
To reduce false alarm dispatches and free up officers for critical calls, many Canadian police services now require verified alarm signals before sending a response. A verified alarm means there is confirmation that a break-in or security breach is actually happening, often through:
- Live audio or two-way voice verification between monitoring centre and premises
- Video confirmation of criminal activity
- Multiple sensor activations that indicate a legitimate intrusion
- On-scene witnesses or key-holder confirmation
Only when one of these verification methods confirms a real event will police be dispatched for burglary or intrusion alarms. Verified response isn’t typically required for panic, duress, or hold-up alarms — but for burglar alarms, verification improves police prioritization and reduces wasted dispatches.
Why Unverified Alarms get Lower Priority
Because unverified alarms lack real-time confirmation, police dispatchers often treat them as low priority compared to verified incidents or other emergencies. With thousands of alarm activations every year, many caused by user error, system malfunctions, pets, wind, or other non-criminal triggers, police must triage calls and focus resources on situations where there is a confirmed threat to people or property.
This reality plays out repeatedly in retail crime. In recent smash-and-grab incidents, including a widely reported lululemon break-in where masked thieves used a sledgehammer and were in and out within minutes, criminals operated openly and confidently, knowing that conventional alarms alone are unlikely to trigger an immediate police response.
What This Means for Businesses
For business owners relying on traditional alarm systems:
- Police may not respond quickly, or at all, without verification
- Repeated false alarms may lead to cost recovery fees or suspension of service
- Cameras alone won’t stop crimes, they only document them
By contrast, verified security systems provide real-time confirmation of genuine threats, enabling police to treat those signals as high-priority and dispatch more quickly when it matters most.