Step 1 of 7The property
Who is buying, where, and what is already installed.
These only appear on the document. Nothing you enter here leaves your browser. Your answers are kept in it so you can come back later, until you clear them.
What a remote guarding scope of work has to say
A guard contract buys hours of presence. A scope of work for remote video monitoring buys a response, and a response is measured in seconds from the moment something is detected. That changes which clauses matter. The ones that separate a serious provider from a call centre with a video wall are: what counts as a verified incident, how many seconds pass between detection and a trained person on the live feed, what that person is allowed to do, who they call and in what order, and how each of those things is timestamped so the monthly report can’t be a matter of opinion.
The builder above writes those clauses from your answers, numbered so bidders can respond to each one. Everything is stated as a result to be measured rather than a method to be followed, the discipline the Federal Acquisition Regulation imposes on federal buyers of services, and it works as well for a property manager. Where the RFP does state a method, it says so, and it is a requirement.
Why the templates that rank for this don’t help
Search for a security services contract template and you get legal shells (parties, term, payment, indemnity) with a blank where the scope should be. They are fine for the wrapper. They can’t write the specification, because they don’t know that an analytics alert isn’t verification, that a monitoring centre has a camera-to-operator ratio that matters at 2 AM, or that a response-time target without a timestamp behind it is decoration. This page does the specification and leaves the wrapper to your counsel.
The service levels, and why each has a measurement column
- Detection to operator on the live feed. The core metric. Measured from the detection timestamp to the operator acknowledgement, for every event, not for a sample.
- Verification to first action. When the audio warning starts or the first escalation call is placed. This is the number that decides whether the person is still there.
- Notification and report. How fast you hear, and how fast you hold a written report with the clip.
- Outage reporting. A camera that is offline is not a monitored camera. The RFP asks how the bidder knows one has gone dark and how soon you would hear.
- Availability of the service as a monthly percentage, with the calculation stated, and what happens to your coverage while the centre is down.
- False dispatches attributable to the vendor, with the municipal fee landing on whoever made the call.
Police, verification and the 0-to-4 scale
The RFP defaults to requesting police only on a verified incident, meaning an operator has seen a person or vehicle and formed a view of intent. That is what dispatch policy rewards. Salt Lake City has sent no officer to an unverified burglar alarm since 2000, Seattle stopped in October 2024, Portland suspends response after a fourth false alarm and names video verification as the way back, and Toronto, Calgary and Edmonton require verification before they dispatch. The ANSI/TMA-AVS-01 Alarm Validation Scoring standard gives emergency communications centres a 0-to-4 scale for the same distinction, from “no call for service” to “confirmed threat to life”, and the builder can require bidders to score every incident on it. The municipal rules are documented city by city in our US alarm permit and false alarm lookup and our Canadian verified response database. For trespass, where the question is whether police can act when nobody from your organisation is on site, the trespass enforcement database covers the authorisation that lets them.
Listings: ask, score, and think before you mandate
UL 827 is the standard for alarm central stations: the building, backup power, redundancy and staffing of a station that receives alarm signals. TMA Five Diamond is a designation from The Monitoring Association built on five commitments: random inspections by a nationally recognized testing laboratory, 100% of operators certified on TMA’s course with recertification every three years, TMA membership, customer service and reducing false dispatches; it is renewed yearly. ULC publishes the Canadian equivalents. All three are real evidence of a serious operation. None of them measures the thing you are buying, which is what an operator does in the first minute after a detection, and some purpose-built live video monitoring centres hold none of them because the standards weren’t written for video. The builder’s default is to require disclosure and score it, while writing the physical requirements (backup power, redundant communications, a tested failover) into the RFP directly so any capable centre can answer. One click makes the listings mandatory if your policy requires that.
Licensing, by jurisdiction
Where we have read the regulator’s own page, the RFP names it: California’s Alarm Company Operator licence, which the Bureau of Security and Investigative Services describes as covering a business that installs, monitors or responds to alarm systems; Texas DPS, which regulates alarm systems installers and monitors; New Jersey’s Fire Alarm, Burglar Alarm and Locksmith Advisory Committee, which licenses those who install, service or monitor alarm systems; New York’s Security or Fire Alarm Installer licence; Florida’s Electrical Contractors’ Licensing Board; and Ontario’s Private Security and Investigative Services Act. Everywhere, the clause puts the burden where it belongs: the bidder identifies every licence that applies, holds it, lists it with a number and an expiry, and says in writing where it considers one doesn’t apply.
Data, privacy and the training clause
You own the footage and the event data; the vendor may not use, share, sell or train systems on it, and returns or destroys it at the end. Retention defaults to 30 days for video and the term plus a year for incident records, with a preservation obligation for anything you flag. Canadian buyers get PIPEDA and the Privacy Commissioner’s guidelines for overt video surveillance in the private sector written in: notice before people enter, collect only what the purpose requires, keep it no longer than that purpose requires. Everywhere, signage is yours and advice on placing it is the vendor’s.
How to run the process
- Build the RFP, read the flags at the top of it, and fix the answers they point at.
- Print it or copy it into your procurement template, and have counsel add the legal wrapper.
- Issue it with a questions deadline. Publish the answers to every bidder.
- Score the proposals against the weighted criteria in Section 9, clause by clause.
- Shortlist two or three and stage an event at one of your sites. Watch the clock, listen to what the operator says. That hour tells you more than the proposals do.
- Call the references, including the one that has had a real incident.
- Run the pilot. Leave if the service levels are missed.
How Blinkless answers this specification
The document is written so any capable provider can respond to it, and we built it that way on purpose: a specification that describes one vendor is worth less to you and draws fewer bids. It is also the document we would like to receive. The default targets (30 seconds from detection to an operator on the live feed, 60 seconds from verification to the first action, five minutes to your notification, the report with it) are the ones we publish and work to. Our average response time from trained operators is under 30 seconds, and the incident on our process page runs the whole chain against the clock: a break-in attempt detected at 1:35 AM, an operator live on camera at 1:36, a verbal warning through two-way audio at 1:37, the intruder gone the same minute, and the client holding the alerts, footage and report at 1:38.
Send us the RFP and we respond to every numbered clause with compliant, partial or non-compliant and the evidence behind it, complete the pricing schedule as written, and answer the Section 10 questionnaire with numbers from our own reporting. The “Ask Blinkless to bid” button under the document does that in one step, or ask for a quote without building one.
Where this comes from
- Performance specification discipline: Federal Acquisition Regulation Subpart 37.6, Performance-Based Acquisition, which describes work in terms of required results with measurable performance standards. acquisition.gov
- Alarm scoring: ANSI/TMA-AVS-01 2024, Alarm Validation Scoring Standard, The Monitoring Association, the source of the level 0–4 definitions quoted above. tma.us
- Five Diamond: The Monitoring Association, Five Diamond Designation: the five commitments, 100% operator certification, three-year recertification, one-year validity. tma.us
- UL 827 and ULC: UL 827, Standard for Central-Station Alarm Services, and CAN/ULC-S561, Installation and Services for Fire Signal Receiving Centres and Systems. Paid standards; nothing is quoted from their text here.
- Licensing: the regulators named on their own pages: California BSIS, Texas DPS, New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs, New York Department of State, Florida DBPR, Ontario. Retrieved 2026-08-28.
- Privacy (Canada): Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Guidelines for Overt Video Surveillance in the Private Sector (2008). priv.gc.ca
- Blinkless figures: the under-30-second average response time and the 1:35 AM incident timeline are from our own remote guarding and process pages.
Everything on this page is a drafting aid. It is not legal advice, and the generated document is a specification, not a contract. Licensing, privacy and procurement rules vary by jurisdiction and change; confirm them before issue.
Frequently asked questions
What is a remote guarding scope of work?
The part of a contract or RFP that says what the monitoring company must do: which areas are watched, during which hours, what counts as a verified incident, what the operator does about it and how fast, who gets called in what order, what gets reported and when. A guard contract buys hours of presence. A scope of work for remote video monitoring buys a response, so the useful clauses are measured in seconds from detection rather than in hours on post.
What should a security monitoring RFP include?
Ten things, and the builder on this page produces all of them: background on the property and the concern; the scope of work with the coverage window and the areas; service levels with a target and a measurement for each; technology and integration requirements; monitoring centre, staffing, licensing and insurance requirements; data, privacy and retention terms; commercial terms including termination; a pricing schedule every bidder must complete the same way; submission instructions and weighted evaluation criteria; and a questionnaire whose answers separate providers.
How is this different from a security services contract template?
The templates that rank for that phrase are legal shells (parties, term, payment, indemnity) with a blank where the scope should be. They are useful for the legal wrapper and useless for the specification, because they don’t know what a verified incident is or why a 30-second response target needs a timestamp behind it. This builder writes the specification. Your counsel supplies the wrapper.
What questions should I ask a remote video monitoring company?
The ones with numbers for answers. What was your median and 95th-percentile detection-to-operator time last month, from your own reports? How many cameras is each operator responsible for at 2 AM on a Saturday? What happens when three incidents start in the same minute? How many police requests did you make last quarter and how many were false? What caused a client to leave in the last two years? Section 10 of the generated RFP holds the full list, filtered to the service you’re specifying.
Should I require a UL 827 listing or TMA Five Diamond?
Ask for them, and think before you mandate them. UL 827 is the standard for alarm central stations that receive alarm signals; it covers the building, backup power, redundancy and staffing of such a station. TMA Five Diamond is a designation from The Monitoring Association built on five commitments: random inspections by a nationally recognized testing laboratory, 100% of operators certified on TMA’s training course, TMA membership, customer service and reducing false dispatches. Both are real evidence of a serious operation. Neither measures what you’re buying, which is what an operator does in the first minute after a detection, and some purpose-built live video monitoring centres hold neither because the standards weren’t written for them. The builder defaults to requiring disclosure and scoring it, with the physical requirements (backup power, redundant communications, a tested failover) written in directly. One click makes the listings mandatory if your policy requires it.
What response time should I put in the RFP?
Two, because they measure different things, and a third that follows from them. The first is detection to a trained operator on the live feed; the builder offers 30 seconds, 60 seconds or 2 minutes. The second is verification to first action, meaning the audio warning starts or the first escalation call is placed. The third is time to notify you. Every target needs a measurement method beside it, timestamps from the system rather than operator narrative, or a bidder can meet it on paper without meeting it at 1 AM.
Why does the RFP say police should only be called on a verified incident?
Because that is the call that gets a response. Salt Lake City has sent no officer to an unverified burglar alarm since 2000 and Seattle stopped in October 2024; Portland suspends response after a fourth false alarm and names video verification as the way back; most cities bill every false one. An operator who can see a person on camera provides what Seattle’s rule asks for, evidence “that a person is illegally entering or attempting to enter”, and the ANSI/TMA-AVS-01 standard gives dispatchers a 0-to-4 scale for scoring it. A requirement to call on every detection buys false-alarm fees rather than faster police. Our US alarm permit and false alarm lookup and Canadian verified response database document the policies city by city.
Does the monitoring company need a licence in my state or province?
Something does in most jurisdictions, and it is the bidder’s job to identify and evidence it, which is how the generated clause is written. In some jurisdictions the alarm-company licence names monitoring: California’s Alarm Company Operator licence covers a business that installs, monitors or responds to alarm systems, and Texas DPS regulates alarm system installers and monitors. Where we have read the regulator’s own page, the RFP names it; everywhere else it requires the bidder to list every applicable licence with its number and expiry, and to state in writing where it considers a licence doesn’t apply.
How long should the contract be?
Twelve months with a pilot clause, in most cases. A month-to-month term pushes installed hardware to an up-front charge or leaves the vendor owning it; a 36-month term gets the best per-camera rate and is a long time to be wrong. The pilot (the first sixty days or the first site, with a no-penalty exit if the service levels are missed) is the cheapest due diligence there is, and a capable provider accepts it.
Does this builder store my answers or send them anywhere?
Nothing is sent anywhere. Your answers stay in this browser and the document is produced there, with no account and no submission. The answers are saved in that browser until you clear them, so you can leave and come back; “Start fresh” on the form and “Start over” under the document both erase them. You only give us contact details if you choose to have the RFP emailed to you or want Blinkless to bid on it, and you can read the whole document before deciding either way.
Can Blinkless bid on the RFP this produces?
Yes, and we would like to. The document is written so any capable provider can respond to it (the requirements are results with measurements rather than a description of one vendor), and it is more useful to you that way. The default service levels are ones we publish and work to: an average response from trained operators under 30 seconds, and a documented incident that runs from detection to the client holding the report in three minutes. If you want us in the bidder list, the “Ask Blinkless to bid” button under the document sends it to us with your contact details; nothing else does.
Want Blinkless on the bidder list?
The RFP is written so any capable provider can answer it. We would like to be one of them. Send it over and we will respond to every numbered clause, with the measured response times behind the answers.
Or call (212) 470-2511.