SAN MATEO, CA--(Marketwired - Jun 26, 2013) - AtHoc, Inc. ( www.athoc.com ), the pioneer and leader in network-centric interactive crisis communication , today announced it was awarded the Support Anti-terrorism by Fostering Effective Technology (SAFETY) Act Designation by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for its Interactive Warning System, AtHoc IWSAlerts™ . This Designation recognizes IWSAlerts as a Qualified Anti-Terrorism Technology (QATT), making AtHoc the first supplier of emergency mass notification (EMNS) technology to receive the SAFETY Act Designation. The final rulemaking stipulates that no action can be taken against the user of a SAFETY Act designated technology, providing AtHoc and its customers a powerful financial shield in the event that an act of terror prompts property or personal injury claims. AtHoc is currently deployed by the DHS for its own internal use across three of its major agencies, including the U.S. Coast Guard, Transportation Security Administration (TSA), and Customs and Border Protection.
The SAFETY Act was enacted by Congress in 2002 as part of the Homeland Security Act of 2002 (Title VIII, Subtitle G) to provide several levels of liability protection for suppliers of anti-terrorism technologies. This Act protects manufacturers or sellers of anti-terrorism technologies and provides incentives to ensure that the threat of liability does not deter them from developing, commercializing, and deploying technologies that could potentially save lives. Technologies that are awarded the SAFETY Act Designation are evaluated by trained reviewers and must pass rigorous technical and economic criteria such as previous U.S. Government use, effectiveness in facilitating a defense against Acts of Terrorism, availability for immediate deployment and the magnitude of risk exposure to the public if the Technology is not deployed.
"We are honored to be the first EMNS vendor to offer its customers significant and crucial protection from liability by virtue of the SAFETY Act Designation from DHS," said Dubhe Beinhorn, Vice President, Government and Homeland Security at AtHoc. "Such Designation is a testament to our enterprise-class offering, innovation and state-of-the-art capability as demonstrated by DHS use of our technology across its agencies."
AtHoc IWSAlerts provides enterprise-class emergency mass notification capabilities that automate end-to-end crisis communication for homeland security, public safety and personnel protection. AtHoc solutions leverage an organization's existing IP network, transforming it into a bi-directional notification system through a centralized web-based console. The system enables emergency managers and EOCs to rapidly and reliably disseminate alerts and emergency instruction to hundreds of thousands of people in minutes anywhere in the world through multiple, redundant technologies and devices. These include computers, VoIP and landline phones, mobile and smartphones, tablets, pagers, computers, sirens, TV, radio, digital displays, PA systems, and more.
AtHoc's enterprise-class offerings are available as a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), on-premise and hybrid configurations, to best suit customer operational and security needs. True enterprise-wide implementations are deployed centrally using a secure private cloud architecture to support multisite organizations while accommodating the alerting needs of each individual group and location -- providing significant efficiencies in implementation, maintenance, and training.
About AtHoc AtHoc is the pioneer and recognized leader in providing network-centric interactive crisis communication systems to military, homeland security, government, healthcare, industrial and commercial organizations. AtHoc's products are used for physical security, force protection, personnel accountability, recall and regulatory compliance. Millions of end-users worldwide, in organizations such as the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Transportation Security Administration, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, UCLA, Microsoft, and Raytheon rely on AtHoc's unified notification systems for their emergency alerting and critical communication needs. AtHoc was recently awarded Government Security News' (GSN) 2012 Homeland Security Award for Best Mass Notification System and has also been recognized by Gartner, Inc. as a leader in its Magic Quadrant for Emergency Mass Notification Services . For more information about AtHoc, please visit http://www.athoc.com .
Media Contact: Rebecca Kufrin Skyya Communications Ph: (952) 746-1309 rebecca.kufrin@skyya.com
