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Vismo and RapidSOS partner to enhance US-based lone worker safety

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Vismo and RapidSOS’ partnership focuses on providing situational awareness for lone workers in an incident, through real-time audio recordings and a direct connection to local emergency responders when employees feel unsafe or are in an emergency. 

Vismo, a leading provider of employee tracking, monitoring and safety solutions, today announced a partnership with RapidSOS, the intelligent safety platform that securely links life-saving data from 500 million connected devices to emergency call operators and first responders, to provide United States based lone workers with more immediate access to first responders whenever and wherever they feel unsafe or are in an emergency. 

The partnership enables Vismo’s customer employees who are feeling unsafe or at risk, including being in a life threatening situation, to get advice – and direct, emergency help if required – at the press of the button, regardless of where they are in the U.S., 24/7.     

Through its platform, RapidSOS provides intelligent data that supports over 15,000 first responder agencies worldwide, covering over 95% of the U.S. population. “Any response delay can be costly or put the employee at greater risk,” says Vismo CEO Craig Swallow. “Our partnership sees Vismo use RapidSOS technology to address this issue and gather data and information to provide extra context to an incident. In return, app users are better protected with a more immediate and appropriate response from the emergency or other services.”

How it works 

The solution works for those customer employees who have downloaded the Vismo App on their phone or other device (tablet, satellite phone or satellite tracker). When the panic button is pressed, the app will automatically send a user’s name, contact information, precise location and a 10-second audio clip of the ensuing situation.   

“This real time collaboration assists at-risk employees more effectively,” says Swallow. “Any or all of this can be crucial to ensuring a positive outcome for those at risk and also helps reduce reputational brand damage and other costs for the employer.”  

“RapidSOS has a track record of bringing life-saving technology and innovation to public safety,” says Jessica Reed, Vice President of Strategy and Global Partners at RapidSOS. “Working to transform emergency response requires a partnership approach, and we continuously look for industry leaders such as Vismo to integrate with RapidSOS Portal and join the RapidSOS Partner Network.” 

The app is available for use, with immediate effect, to all Vismo employers in the U.S. regardless of their geographical location.

About Vismo  

Established in 2012 with offices in York, UK, and New Jersey, USA, Vismo provides location monitoring and safety solutions to more than 300 client organizations, helping protect more than 450,000 Vismo App users globally. To learn more about how we manage and mitigate risks.

Visit: www.vismo.com/us

Call us: +1 866 815 9128 (US) or +44 1904 616666 (UK and ROW)  

About RapidSOS

In partnership with public safety, RapidSOS has created the world’s first intelligent safety platform that securely links life-saving data from over 500 million connected devices, apps and sensors directly to safety agents, 911 and first responders. To learn more about our technology that’s creating life-saving connections.

Visit: www.rapidsos.com

Vismo announces partnership with Factal

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Vismo, a global leader in location monitoring and safety solutions, and Factal, a risk intelligence and breaking news platform, announced a partnership to provide risk data to Vismo customers to enable them to better protect their employees when incidents occur – and fast. 

Through the partnership, Vismo will provide verified risk data, using Factal’s AI technology and a global team of journalists, to assist Vismo customers to better protect their employees when the unexpected happens. 

Vismo helps organisations protect their employees by understanding the risk level of incidents in relation to their employee’s’ location and monitoring alerts activated on the Vismo App.

Factal provides verified risk data, using its AI-led True Impact proximity technology, and a global team of experienced journalists to detect, verify, and prioritise critical details, all within five minutes or less. 

The partnership allows Vismo customers to easily identify when an employee is in, approaching or near the impact zone of an incident. They can then provide accurate support to those in the affected area through Vismo’s Mass Notification service. Within the Vismo Secure Portal, administrators can choose to view only risk data that is relevant, and filter alerts by the level of severity, to help them manage risks more effectively.  

Factal data is available for use in the portal, with immediate effect, regardless of their geographical location. 

Craig Swallow, Vismo CEO, comments “Post-pandemic, so many more of our customers are seeking to move to a more proactive stance when it comes to understanding risk and its proximity to where travelling employees are. The partnership with Factal strengthens what Vismo can do to help our customers locate and protect their workers very quickly.” 

“Says Charlie TIllinghast, CEO of Factal, Companies have repeatedly requested the ability to integrate Factal data. We’re thrilled to see our real-time intelligence helping the teams using Vismo to protect employees globally. Where Vismo tracks employees’ locations precisely, Factal’s pinpoint incident reporting and True Impact proximity technology will provide the information operators need to notify them about. It’s a great fit.” 

About Vismo  

Established in 2012 with offices in York, UK, and New Jersey, USA, Vismo provides location monitoring and safety solutions to more than 300 client organisations, helping protect more than 450,000 Vismo App users globally. Vismo uses GPS, Wi-Fi access points and cell tower ID to locate and protect individuals locally and globally through the app on smartphones, tablets, and satellite devices. 

Many FTSE 100 and Fortune 500 companies, NGO agencies and a growing number of SMEs and organisations in the public sector use Vismo as part of their duty of care towards their employees.  

Visit: www.vismo.com

About Factal 

Factal is a breaking news technology company that helps the world’s largest organizations protect people, avoid disruptions, and expedite disaster relief when global events put them at immediate risk. Founded in 2018, Factal is the only company that combines instant social media discovery with trusted verification in a single platform. From outbreaks and active shootings to wildfires and severe weather, Factal blends artificial intelligence technology with a 24/7 newsroom of experienced journalists to enable global organizations to see precisely where and how they’re at risk in real time. 

Factal is trusted by many of the world’s largest companies, technology platforms, newsrooms and NGOs for security, crisis management, communications, disaster response and content verification. Based in Seattle with a London office, Factal was created by the founders of BreakingNews.com at NBC News. 

Visit: www.factal.com  

Call us: +1 866 815 9128 (US) or +44 1904 616666 (UK and ROW)  

Tornado season is upon us, are you prepared?

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According to NSSL, approximately 1,200 tornadoes hit the United States each year and bring massive winds and destruction in their paths.

A tornado can sometimes strike quickly and allow no time for a warning to be issued. Don’t wait for a tornado to act, preparation and effective communication is key to being resilient and empowering employees with the knowledge and tools to help keep them safe will mitigate risk. 

Here are three important tips to support your preparation: 

  1. Pay close attention to changing weather conditions and be aware of the signs that may indicate a tornado is approaching. 
  1. Identify local emergency shelters to direct travelling employees to safety. 
  1. Implement a solution to effectively track, notify, and stay in touch with employees, even when infrastructure is impacted. 

Vismo has a solution that is simple to deploy and allows you to actively or passively track your employees. If a tornado watch or tornado warning occurs, administrators can immediately send mass notifications to an individual or team based on their proximity to the tornado to alert them, send safety precautions and remain in constant contact to provide crucial updates.  

No signal? No problem. In the event of cell tower outages, Vismo can deploy satellite solutions! All our satellite devices are fully integrated into the Vismo Platform, enabling users to benefit from features such as accurate Location Reporting, Red Alerts, and Geo-Fencing. Furthermore, all devices can send accurate locations back to the Vismo Portal within minutes meaning security teams can accurately track employees and respond quickly.

For more information on how to track and monitor your employees: Home – Vismo 

View our range of devices: https://vismo.com/range-of-devices/  

Arrange a demonstration: https://vismo.com/arrange-demo/ 

Call us: +1 866 815 9128 (US) or +44 1904 616666 (UK and ROW)  

New features added to the Vismo Monitor App

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Vismo launched the Vismo Monitor App in January 2022 and since then organisations have effectively managed alerts triggered by employees who find themselves in a critical situation and require assistance. The App delivers notifications and alerts directly to a mobile device of designated administrators to ensure support can be immediately provided, even if they are away from their desks. 

We are continuously evolving the Vismo Monitor App to exceed customer expectations and we’re excited to share two new features that have recently launched. 

User Search feature

The User Search feature allows administrators to search for an employee by name or email address within the App to see their last known location, without the need to log into the Vismo portal on a laptop or computer. The location address, time, coordinates and what3words will be displayed as well as an option to contact the employee directly.

Face ID and Touch ID authentication

Administrators can now set up biometric authentication, such as fingerprint sensors or face ID, to securely open the app on their mobile devices. This familiar feature is optional but highly recommended as it’s an important step in protecting sensitive data and enhancing security.

The Vismo team are working hard behind the scenes on new and exciting functionalities. Follow us on LinkedIn or Twitter to keep up to date with the latest updates.

Contact our team today for more information or for a demonstration. 

Visit: http://www.vismo.com  

Arrange a demonstration: https://vismo.com/arrange-demo/ 

Call us: +44 1904 616666 (UK and ROW) or +1 866 815 9128 (US) 

Vismo exhibiting at ASIS Europe 2023 in Rotterdam

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Vismo will be exhibiting at ASIS Europe 2023 – From Risk to Resilience, in Rotterdam (NL). Taking place from 21st – 23rd March, the event attracts Europe’s most established and aspiring security leaders with a focus on the latest technology and innovation.

Vismo is ready to showcase its award-winning technology, which utilises the sophisticated location services of a mobile phone or a satellite device to track, locate and protect employees working locally, in a rural area, or travelling globally. We will demonstrate how you can understand the location and risk status of your employees in real-time, anywhere in the world, and if an incident occurred, how you can instantly notify them though our Mass Notification solution to provide appropriate advice and send critical information to help keep them safe.

We will have a range of handheld satellite and mobile devices on hand, which fully integrate into the Vismo platform, enabling users to benefit from features such as accurate Location Reporting, Red Alerts, and Geo-Fencing.

What’s new for 2023?

Vismo is continuously improving customer experience and this year is no exception. The Vismo team are working behind the scenes on developing a new version of the Vismo App that will launch this spring, that will transform the interface, providing users with a more intuitive experience. This will encourage app users to be more interactive and consider risk. If you want to hear more about the new app, then stop by booth #C6 and have a chat with the Vismo team.

We are looking forward to these updates launching and the impact they will have on both new and existing customers.

If you are attending ASIS Europe 2023, come and visit the Vismo team at booth #C6, where you can explore the latest version of the software and products, and try Vismo for yourself.

For more information on Vismo or have any enquiries, please contact enquiries@vismo.com or phone +44 (0) 1904 616666 (UK and RoW) or +1 866 815 9128 (USA).

Register for your ASIS Europe 2023 ticket: https://asiseurope.org/register/

Expanding device portfolio to protect employees in challenging locations

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The Garmin Montana 700i is a handheld satellite GPS device that can be used in areas with no mobile coverage allowing an employer to track and locate an employee in areas where mobile infrastructure may have collapsed, due to military action or a natural disaster, or in areas where there simply isn’t any mobile network. These isolated locations present a challenge when trying to locate an employee in the event of a crisis.

To support the ongoing demand, Vismo is introducing the Garmin Montana 700i to its product portfolio. The 700i is ideal for employees working in remote locations and often in challenging conditions, where reliable communication is essential, no matter where they are in the world or how long they are out in the field.

Satellite devices programmed with Vismo provide employees peace of mind knowing they can be tracked, contacted, and protected in the event of an emergency by their employer. The 700i works across the 100% global Iridium network, is MIL-STD-810 certified and has more than 18 hours of battery life in GPS mode.

Two-way messaging capabilities using SMS, email messaging and dialling are incorporated, making communication with remote teams quick and easy. The 700i is also compatible with Vismo features such as panic alerts, geo-fencing, location reporting and mass notification.

For more information about the Garmin Montana 700i and to download individual product sales sheets, visit our range of devices.

About Vismo

Vismo is a world leader in location technology on mobile devices and is best known for its “locate & protect” smartphone app, which is currently being used by hundreds of our customers to help assess the risk and give appropriate advice to travellers in high-risk areas.

Interested to understand more about Vismo and how we can help you and your employees? Contact our team today for more information or to request a demo.

Visit: http://www.vismo.com

Arrange a demo: https://vismo.com/arrange-demo/

Call us: +44 1904 616666 (UK and ROW) or +1 866 815 9128 (US)

Vismo and ISO 31030 – Travel risk management guidance for organisations.

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Organisations have had no choice but to continually adapt to change over the last few years, especially when it comes to protecting their travelling employees. Pre Covid-19, organisations worried about outdated passports and weather delays. Nowadays it’s Covid passports, fewer airline staff, and potential quarantining. Yet despite continually adapting, how can organisations best serve and protect their employees in an increasingly unpredictable world?

What is ISO 31030?

Before ISO 31030’s inception, there were no universal guidelines for travel risk management. Organisations had to use their best judgment when implementing travel safety policy and procedures, creating gaps in wider efforts around people risk management.

ISO 31030 covers all aspects of corporate travel and is written so that it may be applied to a range of contexts and travel requirements. It provides guidance to those looking to create or improve their travel risk management strategy while ensuring the safety of any travelling employee.

Benefits of ISO 31030?

With borders reopening and more and more employees now travelling across the globe, organisations must provide a duty of care and consider the additional risks that come with employees being constantly on the move. By standardising travel risk management, ISO 31030 helps create and promote a culture where travel-related risk is formally acknowledged while being adequately resourced and effectively managed. Incorporating ISO 31030 standards will benefit any organisation by enhancing its reputation and credibility amongst its customer base – and also by improving worker confidence in travel-related health, safety, and security arrangements.

Vismo helps customers adhere to ISO 31030

To summarise, with expanding duty of care responsibilities and risks to business travellers on the rise, companies must find new ways to alleviate the anxieties of business travel, while keeping travelling employees safe. Vismo does this through our world-leading GPS tracking Locate & Protect App.

Whether your teams operate globally, locally or in a hybrid capacity, Vismo can help you manage and mitigate the risks your employees face each day. Around the clock and in all time-zones, Vismo currently locates and protects over 450,000 mobile staff, delivering true peace of mind and cost benefit to employers and employees alike.

Vismo provides Global Traveller, Lone Worker, Hybrid Worker and Mass Notification applications that instantly locate employees – and come with protective features such as Incident Management, Red Alert and Geo-Fencing. Furthermore, our range of devices and apps come with world-class travel risk intelligence feeds from our partnerships with Riskline and Dataminr.

For more information on Vismo, our products and services plus so much more please visit or www.vismo.com or www.vismo.com/us.

Vismo announces partnership with Riskline

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Vismo and Riskline today announced a key partnership together, providing clients with accurate location services tallied with high quality risk related intelligence.

Vismo offers accurate location services to help organisations better protect their employees through better understanding risks associated with their locations and monitoring any alerts that may be raised. Riskline provides high quality intelligence which is human-verified and analysed, to ensure organisations can quickly respond when an incident or event occurs. Alerts are organised into 7 different risk categories, ensuring organisations receive the most relevant risks to their employees and their location. Riskline also provide detailed data on COVID-19 at country and regional level. Using this information, organisations can more easily understand requirements for travelling, entry and local restrictions, ensuring employees are more prepared and aware of potential risks.

This new exciting partnership provides key benefits for clients to receive high-quality intelligence to better inform employees of potential risks or provide crucial information in an incident. With the use of Vismo, organisations can easily identify when an employee is near an incident, enabling employers to easily provide support to those who are in the affected areas. This ensures organisations are prepared for when an incident does occur as well as better managing risks proactively based on staff proximity to at-risk areas.

Emanuele Scansani, Director of Partnerships at Riskline, states, “We are thrilled to partner with Vismo and bring together Riskline’s human-verified destination intelligence and alerts, with Vismo’s leading location technology. Companies will have the tools they need to ensure their employees are safe wherever they are, a necessity at a time when there is an unprecedented focus on duty of care.”

Craig Swallow, Vismo CEO, comments “Our partnership with Riskline provides our clients with high-quality intelligence alongside accurate location services from Vismo. Organisations can easily understand when an incident occurs using both services and immediately provide support to employees, ensuring safety is at the forefront of planning.”

This partnership demonstrates the dedication to help organisations better protect their employees and ensure they are prepared for when an incident occurs.

About Vismo

Established in 2012 with offices in York, UK, and New Jersey, USA, Vismo provides location monitoring and safety solutions to more than 300 client organisations, helping protect more than 450,000 Vismo App users globally. Vismo uses GPS, Wi-Fi access points and cell tower ID to locate and protect individuals locally and globally through the app on smartphones, tablets, personal trackers and satellite devices.

The app is specifically designed to help all employees, who are travelling, lone working away from home or working from home.

Many FTSE 100 and Fortune 500 companies, NGO agencies and a growing number of SMEs and organisations in the public sector use Vismo as part of their duty of care towards their employees. For more information please visit www.vismo.com.

About Riskline

Riskline is a leading travel risk intelligence company in operation since 2007 and based in Copenhagen, Denmark. Riskline’s world-class information and analysis services are trusted by small business and Fortune 500 companies across a wide range of industries. For more information please visit www.riskline.com.

Vismo smartphone apps play a vital role in preparing employers for any eventuality.

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Critical risks that impact global travelling employees can sometimes happen very quickly, for example a terrorist attack or a sudden weather warning, but sometimes critical risks can show signs of building over time, even falling in risk before suddenly reappearing. A current example is the the immediate threat of Russian invasion in Ukraine. In this scenario, Vismo and its locate & protect smartphone apps can play a vital role in making sure an employer is prepared for any eventuality. For those very rapidly developing risks, its often the geographically targeted mass notification feature that provides the greatest value for employers. Vismo mass notification feature allows users to send immediate & critical information to its employees, whether it be to a large group or to selected individuals, anywhere in the world. For those more gradual and building risks, it can be helpful to keep a constant eye on where staff are in relation to the changing risk picture as well as seeing their location trails over a given period. Using location trails on Vismo smartphone apps will help detail the employee’s known day to day travel patterns, meaning they can be warned if those routes will take them into, or close to, an at-risk location.

Another benefit to using Vismo smartphone apps in high risk areas is our geo-fence technology. The employer can add virtual geo-fences around high-risk areas or places of safety to alert the necessary teams when travellers enter or exit these zones. A company’s appropriate teams would all immediately receive notifications letting them know of the ongoing situation so they can respond accordingly. With the current crisis in Ukraine, we’ve found a number of Vismo customers have used this feature to put a geo-fence along or around country/city borders so when workers pass through a notification occurs. This saves time for teams that can then focus primarily on those in higher areas of risk.

Now, more than ever, and in critical risk situations like Ukraine, responsible employers have a desire to locate and protect their lone and travelling workers so if they are in what could be described as hostile environments, the security team and those involved are fully prepared. We highly recommend implementing Vismo locate and protect smartphone apps onto your employee’s smartphone or tablet devices before travelling. Implementing Vismo to improve worker safety can deliver efficiency gains, provide a clear ROI and help staff feel safer and more looked after. Vismo prides itself on aiding your security teams and managers in easily locating and communicating with staff when there is any type of risk and has done this so far throughout the current Ukrainian crisis. Vismo has supported hundreds of travelling employees spreading from city centres such as Kiev & Donetsk to the Ukrainian/Russian boarder and will continue to do so.

Interested to understand more about how Vismo could help you and your staff? Contact our team today for more information on everything Vismo, or for a demonstration of Vismo locate & protect apps.

Visit: http://www.vismo.com

Arrange a demonstration: https://vismo.com/arrange-demo/

Call us: +44 1904 616666 (UK and ROW) or +1 866 815 9128 (US)