The Background
FortifyFL was created and funded by the 2018 Florida Legislature as part of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act. The application was named and partially designed by students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and developed by AppArmor. The app is a school-related suspicious activity reporting tool that allows the approximately 3 million Florida students and their communities the ability to instantly relay information anonymously concerning unsafe, potentially harmful, dangerous, violent or criminal activities, or the threat of these activities, to the appropriate law enforcement agencies and school officials.
The Solution
By accessing FortifyFL, students can provide a description of the threat, share pictures and videos and submit contact information (if he/she chooses to receive follow-up from law enforcement or school officials). Once information is transmitted via the application, the appropriate law enforcement and school administration entities are instantly contacted and provided with the submitted material. The tips are then routed by the state of the art AppArmor Report system to the appropriate contacts at the over 7000 schools on the system, as well as the correct law enforcement contacts.
The app was met with widespread praise, both in its simplicity for end-users to submit reports and for its ability to quickly and effectively notify law enforcement. County Chiefs, members of the state legislature, and even a positive tweet from the President of the United States marked a tremendous launch for FortifyFL.
"FortifyFL allows students, parents and teachers to feel secure reporting possible crimes, threats, or unsafe situations anonymously through an easy-to-use app."
And the press was well warranted. Since the launch of FortifyFL, over 10,000 tips had been submitted by the app and online reporting website. Of these tips, many have led to arrests, some of which were executed very quickly after the tip was reported. For instance, the Volusia County Sheriff's Office arrested an individual who made a threat of using a weapon at school in under 15 minutes thanks to a tip reported via FortifyFL.
The reason for this quick response is a major part of the value of AppArmor Report. The system allows for automated notifications via SMS, email and voice call to key individuals & law enforcement personnel. This drives those users to log in to the AppArmor Report Portal and acknowledge the tip. If the tip is not acknowledged, then the notifications escalate – the individuals will begin to receive more frequent notifications which simply cannot be ignored.
While FortifyFL is a great example of a major deployment across a state, AppArmor Report is also valuable for individual school districts, or even corporate entities. In some cases, the reporting app is scaled for a smaller number of schools or for corporate whistleblowing; like many elements of the AppArmor platform, the AppArmor Report system can be easily configured to meet the diverse needs of many organizations.