Versaterm Inc. is a Canadian company based in

Ottawa Ottawa is the capital city of Canada. It is located in the southern Ontario, southern portion of the province of Ontario, at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the cor ...

Ontario Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...

that develops

computer-aided dispatch Automation describes a wide range of technologies that reduce human intervention in processes, mainly by predetermining decision criteria, subprocess relationships, and related actions, as well as embodying those predeterminations in machine ...

(CAD) and

records management Records management, also known as records and information management, is an organizational function devoted to the information management, management of information in an organization throughout its records life-cycle, life cycle, from the time of ...

systems for police, fire, and other public safety agencies. Former

Royal Canadian Mounted Police The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP; , GRC) is the Law enforcement in Canada, national police service of Canada. The RCMP is an agency of the Government of Canada; it also provides police services under contract to 11 Provinces and terri ...

employees established the company in 1977; the group had previously developed the

Canadian Police Information Centre The Canadian Police Information Centre (CPIC; , ''CIPC'') is the central police database where Canada's law enforcement agencies can access information on a number of matters. It is Canada's only national law enforcement networking computer system e ...

, a national police database. Versaterm and its rival Niche Technologies, also based in Canada, have "cornered much of the market" for records management in North American police forces, according to ''

The Globe and Mail ''The Globe and Mail'' is a Newspapers in Canada, Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in Western Canada, western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of more than 6 million in 2024, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on week ...

''. Despite its dominance, many of its systems have been criticised by officers for their unwieldiness and unreliability, and several police agencies have abandoned their use.

Products

CAD software

Police agencies that have employed Versaterm's CAD system include Portland,

Sacramento Sacramento ( or ; ; ) is the capital city of the U.S. state of California and the seat of Sacramento County. Located at the confluence of the Sacramento and American Rivers in Northern California's Sacramento Valley, Sacramento's 2020 p ...

Salt Lake City Salt Lake City, often shortened to Salt Lake or SLC, is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Utah. It is the county seat of Salt Lake County, the most populous county in the state. The city is the core of the Salt Lake Ci ...

, and

Seattle Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...

. An inquiry by KXAN News into Austin's use of the system found that several critical hardware and software failures between 2008 and 2010 disabled the system for hours at a time, forcing operators to instead handwrite information when receiving emergency calls. Portland adopted Versaterm's system in 2011, at a cost of $14.5 million. Officers made hundreds of complaints in the months following the launch; reported problems included "system-wide crashes", incorrect dispatches to calls outside officers' jurisdictions, failures in tracking officers' locations, and issues with the font size and functionality of the user interface. Agencies were also irritated by the $2.5 million annual maintenance costs they were required to contribute, and, in a "near-mutiny", some considered not paying to employ the system, due to its reported problems. However, most of the issues had been fixed by 2013, and Portland defended the launch, pointing out that issues were to be expected in such a new system. Versaterm said "very few" of the reported problems were related to its software.

Records management

Versaterm's record management software has been used by police forces from Austin, British Columbia, Minneapolis, Portland and Seattle.

References

{{reflist, 30em Law enforcement in Canada Companies based in Ottawa 1977 establishments in Ontario