BONNYVILLE – Information about emergencies in the MD of Bonnyville could soon be sent straight to your cell phone.
Council passed a motion during their July 8 regular meeting purchase the Voyent Alert system. The app will be used to send urgent notifications to residents' smart phones in the event of an emergency.
Matt Janz, general manager of environmental and protective services, said a review began in 2019 to determine the best program for the MD.
“(The public safety department) has done some investigations with some apps, and they’ve come back with the one that will suit our needs for our residents.”
The annual subscription cost for the app is $4,900, which will be funded through the MD's public safety budget.
Voyent Alert doesn’t offer two-way communication between the MD and residents, however, confirmation messages can be sent by the user back to the municipality within the application.
It also offers multiple ways of contacting residents. Notifications can be sent through the mobile app, email, text message, text to landline, and social media integration.
Coun. Ben Fadeyiw questioned how the municipality could go about getting the contact information for residents interested in getting notifications.
Janz stressed signing up for the service will be completely voluntary.
“We’re still developing this and we’ll come up with some procedures on how to get that information from the public. It will be up to them to provide us that information for the program,” he noted.
Some examples of alerts that can be sent out through the app include Amber Alerts, high water levels, closed roads, and fires.
Other municipalities who have used Voyent Alert have positive reviews and have expanded their use of the program as well.
“One of the other communities that is using this is also using it for rural crime prevention,” detailed Coun. Dana Swigart. “I’ll just mention our crime analyst position. I think that would feed into this, maybe through the RCMP.”
Janz noted that could be an avenue explored down the road, but more research is needed.
“The crime portion will maybe be a little bit more sensitive information. You can’t send it to everyone because some of the criminals could easily get onto this existing system and it would be detrimental for them to have that information,” he explained. “We still want to get the information out to the public, but not too much information to the public. But, that will be part of us developing the procedures in this program and making sure it’s crystal clear to the public and to what we need to do.”
More information will be provided to residents as the MD rolls out the program.
