Versaterm is a Canadian company based in Ottawa,

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...

that develops

computer-aided dispatch Computer-aided dispatch (CAD), also called computer-assisted dispatch, is a method of dispatching taxicabs, couriers, field service technicians, mass transit vehicles or emergency services assisted by computer. It can either be used to send messag ...

(CAD) and records management systems for police, fire, and other public safety agencies. Former

Royal Canadian Mounted Police The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP; french: Gendarmerie royale du Canada; french: GRC, label=none), commonly known in English as the Mounties (and colloquially in French as ) is the federal police, federal and national police service of ...

employees established the company in 1977; the group had previously developed the

Canadian Police Information Centre The Canadian Police Information Centre (CPIC; french: Centre d'information de la police canadienne, ''CIPC'') is the central police database where Canada's law enforcement agencies can access information on a number of matters. It is Canada's only ...

, a national police database. Versaterm and its rival Niche Technologies, also based in Canada, have "cornered much of the market" for records management in North American police forces, according to ''

The Globe and Mail ''The Globe and Mail'' is a Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of approximately 2 million in 2015, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on weekdays and Saturdays, although it ...

''. Despite its dominance, many of its systems have been criticised by officers for their unwieldiness and unreliability, and several police agencies have abandoned their use.

Products

CAD software

Police agencies that have employed Versaterm's CAD system include

Portland Portland most commonly refers to: * Portland, Oregon, the largest city in the state of Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States * Portland, Maine, the largest city in the state of Maine, in the New England region of the northeas ...

Sacramento ) , image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg , mapsize = 250x200px , map_caption = Location within Sacramento ...

Salt Lake City Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the capital and most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the seat of Salt Lake County, the most populous county in Utah. With a population of 200,133 in 2020, th ...

, and

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

. An inquiry by KXAN News into Austin's use of the system found that several critical hardware and software failures between 2008 and 2010 disabled the system for hours at a time, forcing operators to instead handwrite information when receiving emergency calls. Portland adopted Versaterm's system in 2011, at a cost of $14.5 million. Officers made hundreds of complaints in the months following the launch; reported problems included "system-wide crashes", incorrect dispatches to calls outside officers' jurisdictions, failures in tracking officers' locations, and issues with the font size and functionality of the user interface. Agencies were also irritated by the $2.5 million annual maintenance costs they were required to contribute, and, in a "near-mutiny", some considered not paying to employ the system, due to its reported problems. However, most of the issues had been fixed by 2013, and Portland defended the launch, pointing out that issues were to be expected in such a new system. Versaterm said "very few" of the reported problems were related to its software.

Records management

Versaterm's record management software has been used by police forces from Austin, British Columbia, Minneapolis, Portland and Seattle.

References

{{reflist, 30em Law enforcement in Canada Companies based in Ottawa 1977 establishments in Ontario