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Industry players form The Open Security and Safety Alliance

The organization represents companies in the security, safety, building automation solutions and associated industries.

Starting off with the five founding members — Bosch Building Technologies, Hanwha Techwin, Milestone Systems, Pelco by Schneider Electric and VIVOTEK Inc. — and early adopters, including Ambarella Inc., Anixter Inc., AndroVideo, Kings Security Systems Ltd. and NetApp, the Alliance will focus on building standards, specifications, best practices, references and implementation guides.

The Alliance was formed in reaction to today’s market, characterized by the evolution of the Internet of Things (IoT) and the aggregation of data.


According to the organization, security and safety solutions are fragmented due to a lack of collaborative approach to common challenges, including cybersecurity and common operating systems.

The Alliance “brings together organizations that recognize the need for a new market direction and who are willing to contribute to the framework, providing standards and specifications for common components including an industry-specific operating system, IoT infrastructure, collective approach for data security and privacy, and a drive for improved levels of performance. This framework will help the market and parties involved to focus on the aspects that really add value for their customers and open up new application possibilities, even beyond security and safety.”

The Alliance’s key tasks are to:

• Create and promote the use of commonly-agreed standards, best practices and specifications
• Address commonly-agreed challenges shared by the players in the industry, like data security and privacy
• Enable market players to focus on innovative solutions which their customers find of higher value

“With the emergence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and IoT, security and safety products are no longer within closed architectures but moving toward a more open, intelligent, and fast-evolving system. The Alliance framework will allow talented players, no matter the company size, across different sectors, to easily join and work together to drive innovation, and thus provide jumping growth for the industry, and benefit users with true values. We are happy to be one of the contributors in this important venture,” said Owen Chen, Chairman and CEO, VIVOTEK Inc.

Over the last year, the founding members have worked together and discussed with over 50 companies, varying from early adopters to established technology companies, to verify initial concepts. System integrators and distributors have also been consulted. This input will help shape the standards and specifications that will eventually be consolidated in the Alliance framework.

Membership is now open for organizations interested in joining the Open Security and Safety Alliance. Details can be found here.