“Apartment building entrances to open automatically when police respond to 112 calls” ... rollout expands to police stations nationwide

[Financial News] Police will expand a system that automatically opens apartment building entrances when officers respond to 112 calls to police stations nationwide. The aim is to reduce delays in entering a scene caused by late-night conditions or an unattended guard office, and to secure the golden hour for the safety of people in need of rescue.
According to the Korean National Police Agency on the 19th, police will expand operation of the “Automatic Shared-Entrance Access System for Responding Officers” at police stations nationwide starting today.
The system allows responding officers to pass through apartment buildings’ shared entrances without a separate access card or password. Working with private companies that manage access to shared entrances, police developed a dedicated automatic-entry app and installed it on 112 phones.
When officers respond to a 112 call, a location information system linked to GPS displays 10 apartment buildings near the incident in order of distance. After an officer selects a building, its entrance door opens automatically when the officer comes within 3 meters of it.
Police previously piloted the system in 350,000 households within the jurisdictions of four police stations—in Gangnam, Seoul; Suwon Yeongtong and Hwaseong Dongtan in Gyeonggi Province; and Suseong, Daegu—from December last year through March. The system was found useful for rapid entry and response, as officers could gain immediate access even late at night or when guard offices were unattended.
To expand the system, police increased the number of participating companies from two to five. They invested about 210 million won in the system implementation project from August through October, completing development and testing on the 15th.
As a result, officers responding to 112 calls can now automatically enter the shared entrances of about 2.55 million apartment units—20.7% of the roughly 12.33 million units nationwide.
With the nationwide expansion, police plan to gather feedback from officers in the field and improve the system’s performance and convenience. They also plan to bring on additional participating companies and steadily increase the number of apartment buildings that can be accessed.
[email protected] Kim Ye-ji Reporter