Monaghan rolls out full-coverage community text alerts with Komeer

No more coverage blackspots for text alerts in Monaghan as JPC rolls out county-wide community alert service through Komeer to address rural crime concerns
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(Image: An Garda Síochána)

30 April 2019

Monaghan is the first county to introduce full-coverage community text alerts with thanks to an innovative partnership between the community sector, An Garda Siochana and Monaghan County Council. It is facilitated by Komeer, Ireland’s first GDPR compliant complete communication service.

This comes after a four year collaboration between the JPC and Gardai in an effort to establish how best to support communities in addressing rural crime.

In bringing 26 individual community alert groups into one system, sending out alerts becomes streamlined, making life easier for Gardai. Under one coordinated system, concerns of out-of-date data, user consent, privacy issues and data management have been eliminated. With its GDPR facility, Komeer can provide data support, health checks, consent request and data management within a centralised low-cost compliant solution.

This service will relieve the strain many local groups have felt under the new data-protection regulation and the associated administrative burden of renewing contact details and permissions.

This system also works for An Garda Siochana, who had been experiencing difficulties both with issuing texts to various groups, and with SMS in general. Komeer’s simple solution lets any Garda issue an alert, making it very easy for Gardaí to send alerts from any station, a move that is hugely important with the recent centralisation of Garda communications units. Each time a message is sent out, it is projected that Komeer will deliver 6,000 notifications for the Gardai, all the while, saving the thousands spent on SMS costs.

Under the new service, subscribers can receive communications through the app, e-mail, SMS and the Web. Smartphone users can download the Komeer app and subscribe to the Monaghan community alerts group, while subscribers with old-style phones can receive messages by SMS. It is interactive, allowing subscribers to respond yes or no to a message. An Garda Síochána can also select individual areas to push out localised messages within a community.

In addition, there is two-way group messaging, and a payment feature, allowing councils and organisations to collect payments, organise activities, and keep user contact details up to date with full GDPR compliance functionality.

For the first time, members of the public who live in a part of the country that does not have a community alert group can receive alerts by joining Komeer’s service.

Pat Walsh, CEO, Komeer, said: “With Monaghan County Council covering the cost of messages, and Komeer’s innovative technology and robust GDPR processes, subscribers are guaranteed a safe, secure, trusted and free messaging service which will provide a crucial link between the Gardai and the community and help to make it difficult for criminals to operate in the county.  And with over 8,000 pairs of eyes on the lookout all over the county, it will be a very brave thief who strays into Co. Monaghan from now on.”

The Komeer service was initially launched in early 2018, the service had seen great success in its use in schools, creches, sports clubs.

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