Customer story · Higher education · California

UC Law San Francisco gives students room to breathe.

Six buildings across two city blocks in the Tenderloin, looked after without anyone watching screens all day.

Two city blocks, six buildings 1,000–1,500 students Alerts, not monitoring Works with existing layers

A tall stone law school building on a city street

The challenge

A city campus, and the limits of watching.

UC Law already had security staff and multiple firms covering interior and exterior. The gap was what happens between glances.

Attention is finite

Even strong security staff get distracted, engage with students and guests, and multitask. Things on camera can be missed.

Older cameras in some places

Parts of the campus ran on older systems. VOLT works with existing IP cameras.

What they did

A decentralised approach, rather than a command centre.

Instead of building a traditional continuous monitoring room, UC Law added intelligence to its existing IP cameras.

Step 1
Start where it counts
Deployment focused first on high-priority areas, working around the technical limits of legacy systems elsewhere.
Step 2
Layer, don’t replace
VOLT complemented the existing multi-layered approach, including the separate interior and exterior security firms.
Step 3
Grow with the upgrades
Coverage is designed to extend to more of the campus as older camera systems are replaced.

What changed

The team hears about things while they are happening.

What changed for Noah Skinner and the safety team.

Caught in action, not on review

Alerts surface activity instead of it being found later, if at all.

Attention where people are

The team can spend time engaging with students and guests rather than watching screens.

A sense of sanctuary

Skinner describes a sanctuary effect inside the campus, despite the challenges of the surrounding neighbourhood.

In their words

Why it mattered at UC Law.

From the Director of Safety & Emergency Preparedness.

Knowing we have a comprehensive security program in place allows students to breathe easy and focus on learning, rather than worrying about their safety.

Noah Skinner
Director of Safety & Emergency Preparedness, UC Law San Francisco