Industry News: SOS Technologies Partners with NYC Public Schools for Emergency Alert System
NYC Public Schools Deploy Direct-to-First-Responder Emergency Alert System
With the world’s largest public school system, New York City schools serve an estimated 1.8 million students and staff. To improve safety and emergency response, the city partnered with SOS Technologies to deploy an innovative emergency alert system (EAS) for the city’s public schools. When a school is experiencing an active threat to the safety of its students and community, the EAS allows for direct and instant communication between the school and first responders.
The platform communicates with several agencies, including city public schools, police, PSAC 911, and the fire department. This directly links schools to the city’s emergency responder communications infrastructure, which accelerates emergency notifications. It also enables first responders to geolocate outgoing calls for help.
The new system was created in partnership with SOS Technologies and the New York City Office of Technology and Innovation. The EAS was first deployed at the Spring Creek campus in Brooklyn and is scheduled to be rolled out to 24 other school buildings across the city’s five boroughs during the 2025-2026 school year.
Mergers & Moves
Motorola Solutions // Blue Eye
Motorola Solutions acquired Blue Eye, a provider of artificial intelligence (AI) powered enterprise remote video monitoring services that can help identify threats in real time and provide verified alerts. The terms of the sale have not yet been disclosed.
Pye-Barker Fire & Safety // FSD Protection
Expanding its presence in Texas markets, Pye-Barker Fire & Safety bought FSD Protection, a fire alarm, fire sprinkler, suppression, and extinguisher service based in Houston.
RapidSOS // Northern911
RapidSOS, a technology company that provides mission-critical intelligence for emergency responders, acquired Northern911, which provides backup 911 services for hundreds of agencies throughout North America.
Axon // Carbyne
Global public safety technology provider Axon announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire Carbyne, an emergency communications and response platform that serves hundreds of agencies worldwide. The purchase, which values Carbyne at $625 million, reflects Axon’s efforts to enhance its portfolio of public safety solutions.
MES Life Safety // Safety Inc.
Fire, safety, and emergency response solutions provider MES announced its acquisition of Safety Inc., which provides industrial safety equipment, personal protective equipment, and gas detection instrumentation for customers in New England and the surrounding area. This will expand MES’s services to include safety instrumentation, calibration, and repairs.
Ping Identity // Keyless
Ping Identity announced that it signed a definitive agreement to acquire Keyless, a London-based provider of protecting the privacy of biometric authentication. When the purchase is closed, Ping Identity—which also focuses on securing digital identities—will integrate Keyless’s authentication services into its platform.
Assa Abloy // Metal Products Inc
Assa Abloy’s acquisition of Metal Products Inc., a U.S. manufacturer of custom hollow metal doors and frames, is expected to strengthen Assa Abloy’s position in mature markets by deepening its portfolio of complimentary products and solutions.
Awards
The 2025 OnCon Icon Awards listed Allied Universal as a winner in its “Top 50 Learning and Development Team” award. The awards, which are announced during an annual summit, are peer and community voted awards that are based on an observation of an awardee’s work.
During the 25th Detektor International Awards, Suprema’s Q-Vision Pro won first prize in Best Product for the IoT Security category. The item is a financial crime prevention solution that operates as a standalone AI video analytics module meant to prevent voice phishing and ATM fraud.
Contracts
New York’s Grand Island Central School District announced that it has renewed its contract with ZeroEyes after a successful three-year deployment.
Reports & Research
Hornetsecurity published its annual Cybersecurity Report, finding that malware email attacks increased 131 percent in 2025, with threat actors using generative AI to scale attacks.
The NCC Group—a global cyber and software resilience business—published a Q3 2025 Cyber Threat Intelligence Report, with findings including that the volume of global ransomware increased by 28 percent from August 2025 to September 2025, with industrial businesses identified as the most-targeted category.
The NCC Group also recently published The state of supply chain security. This second report highlighted global insights into supply chain security posture, regulatory shifts, and provided advice on enhancing supply chain security. One of its findings was that while 92 percent of organizations trust their suppliers to follow cybersecurity best practices, a third of businesses do not conduct regular risk assessments on suppliers.
Announcements
Canada’s Public Health Agency (PHAC) announced that the nation is currently experiencing a large, multijurisdictional outbreak of measles, which began in October 2024 and has persisted for more than 12 months. The Pan-American Health Organization notified the PHAC that Canada no longer holds measles elimination status.
Partnerships
Financial crimes. LSEG and Facctum collaborated to offer World-Check On Demand on Facctum’s FacctList platform—offering continuously updated access to LSEG’s financial-crime data.
Workplace safety. Mental Health Cooperative (MHC)—a behavioral health organization in Tennessee—and safety technology company Silent Beacon have partnered to protect nearly 300 of its team members with discreet, wearable panic buttons. In an emergency, a single press allows the employee to call 911, alert supervisors, and indicate their live location via GPS.
Biometric identification. IDEMIA Public Security has partnered with the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission to deploy NAFIS NextGen, an international cloud-based biometric identification system. The system allows for interoperability between the country’s Enterprise Biometric Identification Services (EBIS) system and National Automated Fingerprint Identification System (NAFIS), allowing the organizations to compare and match against each other’s fingerprint and palmprint data.
Radicalization. Canada’s Secretary of State for Combatting Crime, Ruby Sahota, announced a federal investment of nearly $37 million CAD ($26.2 million) through the Community Resilience Fund (CRF). The CRF supports partnerships and innovation aimed at preventing violent extremism in Canada. The funding will be directed at 19 organizations that directly work in Canadian communities to prevent and counter violent extremism, gender-based violence, grievance-fueled violence, and other kinds of radicalization and violence.
