James Harris:

Hey, welcome to today's webinar. We're going to get started. So we're going to get started here in just a second. My name is James Harris. I am with LiveView Technologies. Joining me today are Peter Platten and Adam Sammons from Protos Security. Real quick, I'm going to do a quick introduction of myself and then I'll allow Peter and Adam to introduce themselves. But I'm located in Utah, specifically Orem, Utah. It's just south of Salt Lake City. Bear with me as I work through some of the emotional fallout of the Utah Jazz losing their playoff game five last night. I'm still working through that. But anyways, I've been with LiveView Technologies for about eight months, and I've got extensive background in industrial augmentation and then also software industries, and I joined LiveView just kind of an exciting intersection of those two different types of industries. So Peter, Adam, Peter, why don't we start with you. Do you wouldn't mind just giving us a brief introduction and we'll move over to Adam?

Peter Platten:

Terrific. Welcome to everybody on the webinar. Appreciate you joining us. My name is Peter Platten. I am the senior VP of sales and strategic accounts for Protos Security with my responsibility being the US, Canada and Puerto Rico. I have 12 years in the security industry working with both guarding and electronic security.

James Harris:

Thanks, Peter.

Adam Sammons:

And my name is Adam Sammons. I'm the vice president of operations and logistics at Protos Security. I've been with Protos Security since 2013 and have recently been working with LiveView to provide clients with remote monitoring solutions and building out those programs in conjunction with LiveView.

James Harris:

Awesome. Thank you, gentlemen. Well, let's jump into it. So real quick, quick overview of today's webinar. We're going to have a conversation, Peter, Adam, myself, and we'll be taking questions at the end of that conversation for Q&A. We want to leave plenty of time to fill the questions and continue the conversation. So real quick, we're going to define the problem, right? We're going to review statistics and whatnot and really give you an idea of how we see the problem and also how we define actual steps. Whether you're a business and you're looking for a solution, whether you're a law enforcement agency or really any organization, we want to arm you with some actionable steps also.

But also as a regular citizen that encounters this issue, maybe you've had this problem happen to your own personal vehicle or a family member, friend or loved one. We want this to be a good takeaway, actionable steps that don't necessarily involve LiveView Technologies or Protos. But this is a hot topic. It's on the rise, and then we'll draw it all together, big picture, just kind of wrap things up, and then like I said, we'll move into the Q&A at that point. Okay.

So catalytic converter problem. Let's kind of dive into this. So I would imagine most people on this call or on this webinar are familiar with the issue at hand, but for those who are merely interested or are not familiar with some of the specifics, this has become a massive problem. It's been largely driven by the cost of precious metals. So if you are not aware, a catalytic converter is actually something that has to be on your vehicle to help reduce emissions. The catalytic converter is part of your exhaust system, and these precious metals will actually help clean the exhaust before it enters the environment and the atmosphere. So as you can imagine, precious metals like rhodium, gold, platinum, stuff of that, very expensive. Smartphones, electronics, it's very competitive, and there's only a finite supply of these type of metals. And these catalytic converters that contain these materials are largely unprotected on your vehicle.

So just to give you an idea of what's happening here, the thefts have increased drastically just over the last 12 months, as you can see, order of magnitude nationally. Again, if you're not aware, a catalytic converter theft is, it's where they essentially chop off the muffler from the bottom of your car. And your muffler is made out of pretty thin tubular steel kind of sheet metal. If you're familiar with a saw saw or a saber saw, something that you could easily pick up at Home Depot for just like 50 bucks. It's kind of like a reciprocating saw that has specific metal blades that can cut through your exhaust system in just a matter of seconds. Usually it takes about 90 seconds or so for a thief to effectively get underneath a vehicle, make a few cuts, and be on their way.

So this is a pretty quick, what's the word I'm looking for? Activity, criminal activity that yields a very high result for the criminals. As you can see, rhodium alone has increased over about 4000% in the past five years. So anyways, we've seen some thieves captured on a LiveView system. For example, they have stolen five catalytic converters within about 15 minutes. There were about four individuals that were obviously coordinating with each other. They were on camera, not enough to deter them. But anyways, that's just kind of the problem in general. Peter, Adam, if you want to weigh in, maybe give I guess more context or add your 2 cents, how you define the problem and so forth.

Peter Platten:

Absolutely. We're seeing issues. I mean, it's widespread and the metals whether we've lived through issues with copper theft, different things that have happened in the past, and now the plays for the catalytic converters. Essentially they're targeting everything from shopping malls to mass commuter lots and college campuses, facilities that they know folks will be on working an extended period amount of time shift. So we're definitely, it's a growing problem that we're seeing. So Adam, touch on some of the things that you're dealing with in monitoring.

Adam Sammons:

Yeah. Thank you, Peter. And like Peter said, this has become an issue, especially over the past year as heavy metal production has slowed down due to COVID. So this is something that we have really started to see a lot more of, especially as we in the remote monitoring for the clients that we do for LiveView. So what we have really seen, the proactive monitoring is really what we have targeted, and that in conjunction with the alert-based monitoring is some of the solutions that we are looking at to help combat this problem. And James, I'll turn it back over to you.

James Harris:

Awesome. Thanks, Adam. Thanks, Peter. So really, you would think with most, I would encourage those of you attending the webinar not only to ask questions in the little chat feature there on the right of your screen with regards to catalytic convertor theft, but also maybe share some of your stories. Maybe you've had yourself personally or someone you know who has experienced this type of incident inconvenience. It is a huge inconvenience, and I'll kind of define that here in a second just to give people an idea. But I would encourage you to maybe share those types of scenarios that you've experienced in the chat box. By all means, I'm still hearing interesting use cases, in some cases, tragic ones.

I know Peter, you and I had spoken recently about the incident that happened up in Tacoma, Washington. I don't know if we want to delve into some of those details as it is quite tragic. But anyways, it's interesting. When you steal a catalytic converter, you're looking at maybe $200, $400 selling to a scrap yard. And in a scrap yard, although they take measures to combat this and help ease the problem, there are many scrap yards that still will take catalytic converters, even though it's pretty obvious that they've been stolen. But you don't know if they're coming off of junked vehicles that have been totaled or it's hard. It's not like the catalytic converters are serialized or anything like that, easily traceable. But if you've been on the receiving end of the catalytic converter theft, you're looking at anywhere between 1500 to $3,500 for a replacement of your catalytic converter.

And I think the Toyota Prius is actually, I've surprisingly, is the number one targeted vehicle, mostly because it has more of the precious metals in its catalytic converter. You would think that trying to shimmy yourself underneath a Toyota Prius would, why not go for the trucks or something with large clearance would make more sense. You don't have to use a jack. Most thieves will carry around a jack, like a quick jack to get in underneath cars quickly. But yeah, Toyota Prius for some strange reason is one of the more targeted vehicles, but-

Peter Platten:

Well, James, it's all the low, I mean, it's definitely Prius, but low emission vehicles, the hybrids are prime targets, as you said, because of the additional rhodium platinum that they have within the catalytic converters. So with the increase in hybrids, it's, again, becoming an increasing problem. But also, yeah, they look for vehicles that offer height. Those with height, the trucks and SUVs and so forth, those are the ones that they're able to get to quickly. They can get in and out. But Adam, you want to add to that?

Adam Sammons:

Yeah, yeah. Peter, like you said, SUVs and trucks targets that they can easily get in with the saw because of the extra height underneath. And again, as we'll talk about a little bit later on, that can be part of a solution as well as you all look at your parking lots, just thinking about your employee parking, maybe being more strategic about that, maybe having hybrid cars in a certain area of the parking lot, encouraging people with SUVs or trucks to park perhaps near an entrance or if there's a LiveView unit present. So just also keeping that in mind can assist with combating this problem as well.

James Harris:

Awesome. Thanks, gentlemen. You know what I thought was interesting, Peter and Adam, is again, kind of going back to the Prius and your hybrid vehicles. I think the fact that those are the most targeted vehicles, and again, trucks are obvious like an easy steal, right? And I'll go into an example here in a second, but this kind of highlights the fact just how hardened, and I don't know if desperate is the word, some of these criminals are to, or shameless to steal these materials from these vehicles. To have to bring a jack with you to get underneath like a Toyota Prius, in a lot of instances, these criminals are well organized too. A lot of times they're working with each other to scout parking lots, look for if there's a security guard, if there is where he is in his patrol, cameras, where are they located? It's just kind of interesting.

So the one kind of, I guess example I want to keep highlighting is the one that we have here where we actually have footage of, it was two, I think it was actually three vehicles of individuals. And this was actually in the Dallas-Fort Worth area where we have video footage, again, like identifiable video footage of make and model of a vehicle, also what clothing they were wearing and stuff like that. It was interesting, there was a Mazda 3, which is like a compact sedan parked right next to a Toyota Sequoia in the parking lot, and they stole the catalytic converter out from both of them. And in the video footage that we have, you can see the individual laying underneath the Toyota Sequoia so big SUV. The Sequoia doesn't budge, doesn't move at all throughout the process, but the Mazda 3 right next to it, they put it up on a jack and you can actually see the right rear end corner of the vehicle has been elevated about six or seven inches.

You can see it happening on video. You can also see an individual who's out standing guard, so there's somebody under the vehicle kind of scouting. And then while they're stealing the catalytic converter from those two vehicles, and this is in broad daylight, I might add. Also, it's at a 24/7 facility. It's at a business address. It's at a 24/7 facility where there's constant foot traffic from employees. So there's really no fear. They're working in tandem with each other to help alleviate the risk of getting caught. And you can imagine working together and being able to steal five of these within 15 minutes without being deterred. They probably just went to the next nearest parking lot and stole more catalytic converters.

Now, before we move on here, I think we've gotten kind of a good idea of what the problem is. I do want to mention that I think the biggest problem for catalytic converter theft is the fact that people don't know that their CC has been stolen until maybe days or weeks after it had happened. Most people aren't car people, after a day's work, you can imagine you have other things on your mind. You might notice that when you start up your car for the first time, that something sounds a little weird.

There are, I guess if you're a car person, you probably know immediately that something's not right with your vehicle. But if you're not a car person, it might be the next time you go to Jiffy Lube for an oil change that they're just like, "Hey, your catalytic converter is gone." So not being able to pinpoint exactly when it happened kind of makes it difficult to determine when and where it happened, right? With a smash and grab for example, by contrast, it's pretty obvious that your window's missing, but not the case with catalytic converter. So that kind of further complicates the problem. It's hard to really pinpoint where it happens. And like I said, it's difficult to catch in the ax, but we're going to discuss some broader principles here in the next slide. Peter, Adam, if you have something you want to add to this, any other things you might think of, let me know. And if not, we can move on to the next screen.

All right. Awesome. Okay. So actionable steps. Okay. So it's important to realize that there is no silver bullet. And there are some things that we can do on a business level and also on a consumer level to help alleviate the problem. So I'm going to speak to that example that I was just mentioning, the five CC thefts in 15 minutes.

So we had two trailers in that parking lot and we had the red and blue flashing strobe lights at the top where the cameras are kind of optical, pointing out optically that there is a security presence in this parking lot. It was a long narrow parking lot. We had good coverage from a camera standpoint, we could see the good, we had the entire parking lot covered.

I don't know if the criminals didn't see our trailers, they had to have, they drove right past them. I mean, we have make and model of both of the vehicles and also the potential third one. I don't know if it was tunnel vision or you kind of have an adrenaline fix, but you got to know that most properties are going to have PTZ cameras on the size of the building anyways that are probably going to pick you up. So come to find out after the fact, again, this was weeks after, we weren't alerted to this the same day. Again, people didn't know that their catalytic converters had been stolen, but we come to find out that I think both vehicles have been stolen, so that makes it hard to kind of trace from a license plate standpoint.

But what we really think would've helped deter the situation, because this was not a secure parking lot. It was not fenced in. There was not card access. And like I mentioned, it was a 24/7 facility. And so using our thermal imaging cameras on our trailers to detect human presence when they should not be there was kind of tricky because we were getting a lot of false positives for associates and employees. And so Adam and Peter's team who monitor our trailers remotely, it became a bit of a tricky issue to have to sift through all 100+, 200+ alerts every day. We had an idea of when the ship changes where we were kind of narrowing in on the problem, but really what we wanted to do is using audio to our advantage.

Now, the LiveView technology solution, our D3 Mobile Unit for example, has a speaker located on the top where the cameras are. So 22 feet up in the air, there's a loudspeaker. And we have the ability to play a multitude of pre-recorded messages, whether that's from our audio library or if those are messages that you provide to us to load into the camera and then play it set intervals. But I think having played an audio message to the effect of, "Hey, thank you for coming to work today. As a reminder, please wear your mask for safety." This was months ago when the vaccines were still being rolled out.

But it would've served as a friendly reminder to employees that like, "Hey, for your safety, the parking lot is being monitored and surveilled for your safety." So it was kind of like an indirect reminder to would-be criminals that we are actively monitoring. It's not like your typical camera system that you just go back and review footage later only to find out the vehicle has been stolen. We wanted to take a proactive approach with the speaker, use that to our advantage.

Peter, Adam, did you want to talk a little bit more about the solution that we wanted to develop and have developed for situations like this where I guess organized catalytic converter theft, more hardened criminals with regards to the proactive monitoring and even the randomized in-person controls? Peter, would you mind talking a little bit more about that?

Peter Platten:

Absolutely. So what we like to do is use a few different lines of service. So with the particular situation we're talking about, we handle the monitoring. So from an alarm-based standpoint, we're able to respond as well as provide proactive tours to check the lots, the surroundings, and then we couple that with mobile patrol units that we can use to deploy at random times during the day, during the evening so they can drive the lots, they can check the building, the structure, the landscape, et cetera. And it just increases the deterrent in addition to the placement of the trailers and some of the things that you had discussed as well, as far as the audio broadcast. Adam can give some specifics on the audio broadcast as far as that goes as well.

Adam Sammons:

Yeah. Thank you, Peter. We have had a lot of luck with the audio broadcasts, as James mentioned earlier, around shift change, welcoming employees or perhaps when they're leaving, doing sort of a departure greeting and just letting them know that there actually is a actual human watching these cameras. And also if there's anybody that potentially is looking to steal a catalytic converter, when they hear these messages, they know that there's somebody actually watching those cameras.

So in addition to the prerecorded messages, that can also be played throughout the day, doing the proactive monitoring, doing sweeps of the parking lot. And also if it is a situation where alert-based monitoring is possible, if we do catch an active theft, we can actually do an audio broadcast and customize it. If it's an individual that's wearing a purple shirt or driving a silver car, we can actually do an audio broadcast and say, "You and the purple shirt and driving the silver car, the police have been contacted." And we can in some cases actually prevent an act of theft in those cases. But what it really promotes is an atmosphere of safety for the employees as well, but also lets any, if possible, theft helps to really deter that because they do know that an actual human is watching the cameras.

James Harris:

Awesome. Thanks, gentlemen. So the proactive audio, also the proactive monitoring typically in I guess easier applications, a lot of properties, at least business properties, humans, pedestrian traffic is not supposed to be present at after hours. In this particular example, it was a 24/7 facility, which made this even more kind of difficult and it was a wide-open parking lot and in a known hotspot, Dallas-Fort Worth area where this has been a huge issue in north Texas, right? A bit of a... Anyways, so we know it was a hotspot. It was a location where it's a warehouse where it's not like it's a park or a location where you can leave the building easily. There was only one entrance to the building. It was a large parking lot, so it wasn't like there, and there weren't a ton of windows either, right? It was a warehouse. And so when you're inside a warehouse, as you can imagine as a warehouse worker, you're not going to be able to see your vehicle or check on it very easily.

And I was there personally when we deployed the units and there wasn't great visibility from inside the building. And if you're working long shifts and not able to take your breaks outside, you can imagine the kind of anxiety that that has created, that that can create. Most of the time businesses and organizations, they're not responsible for what happens in their parking lots to employee or customer vehicles. In other words, if you get your catalytic converter stolen from a parking lot outside of a big box retail store or at this warehouse, the person who owns the property, the business, they are not liable for what happens to your vehicle. But businesses have a vested interest to make sure that their employees and their customers have a good experience. As you can imagine, it's hard to shop, it's hard to work when you don't have peace of mind that most everybody, their car is their second biggest investment outside of their home, make sure that their investment, their property is not being messed with.

So we've seen an approach from businesses, we're just like, "Hey, this is a brand enhancement tool for us to have these units in the parking lot and for them to be proactively monitored by Peter and Adam and their team at Protos." So in some cases they've seen a 70% decrease in unwanted activities, and you can imagine that's pretty drastic. Now, we have some clients who want a 100% watertight, never going to happen again approach to stuff like catalytic converter theft. In that case like a 24/7 security guard or a couple of 24/7 security guards that are essentially never parking their vehicle, they're just patrolling the parking lot the entire time. That can cause kind of a difficult situation even for these organized groups of criminals. So I think the security guard solution is great. This particular client needed something that was watertight, never going to happen again.

Now, what we had developed for this client, and unfortunately we didn't have the chance to test it out with them, but we were confident it would be just as effective and save them a considerable amount of money, was to not only have a proactive audio and proactive video patrols, but also to, since Protos has a national reach with their in-person security guards, also pair it with six randomized in-person patrols of the parking lot. So there were still in-person patrols, but not 24/7. As you can imagine, overhead minimum wage or whatever the hourly rate is for a security guard, it can be quite cost prohibitive to do it 24/7, but if you're only doing it about six times a day at random times where would be organized, can't observe and learn the patterns of how the parking lot is being patrolled, you can imagine that that would be quite effective.

So anyways, that's kind of like the far end of the spectrum with how we can pair LiveView Technologies' awesome cameras. These are cameras that are recording 24/7. These are cameras that are up times are north of 98, 99%. So you're able to access the video streams, access the video archives at any given moment. They're almost entirely solar-powered. These particular units were entirely solar paneled. If you need a gas generator or even a methanol fuel cell as kind of a power backup, we provide that for you in certain geographies and certain situations.

You can imagine in Alaska, in the Northeast and other locations where you may want additional power backup, but being able to access those cameras quickly, remotely from anywhere over a cellular connection and securely is a huge win for our clients. And then being able to pair it with Peter's team and have these proactive patrols and then also really a slam dunk with being able to have these six or whatever number you determine randomized patrols throughout the day to really create a secure presence and really increase the efficiency and maximum deterrence, right? Because the nature of this crime is like it is advantageous to focus on deterrence. You can focus on more of a reactive approach to it. Our cameras will capture footage and it will be useful to local law enforcement agencies, but I mean your employees, your customers are ultimately the people who are left holding the bag.

And so I feel strongly that we have a solution that can really take this to the next level, but it's also a spectrum. Maybe you just want to have our cameras on site and you do take a reactive approach to it and capture video like, great, that's a low cost part of the solution. Or you can turn the volume knob all the way up to 11 and really hit it home. So anyways, from another standpoint, let's talk a little bit more about some actionable steps, Peter and Adam, that we as individuals can take. Anything you wanted to add before we dive into those types of steps?

Peter Platten:

As you said, with the compilation of the different services and mitigation of these risks, it's not just through guarding and through the electronic security solutions, et cetera. I mean, Adam touched on it earlier on, just the ability to create a mindful parking set up at your businesses is greatly helpful. As Adam was saying, with hybrid vehicles, perhaps you want those parked closer to the entrance of your facility, the larger SUVs perhaps as well.

There are other things that you can do to offer to employees as far as there are many muffler brake tire shops that actually offer free engraving that they'll engrave on the catalytic converter, the license plate number or the VIN number of the vehicle, just as, again, an increased deterrent. There are just some helpful things that you can do as well as reaching out to local muffler shops. You can find out what brands vehicles in your area have been targeted, what they've seen. You can direct your employees to check things like nextdoor.com for thefts that have taken place in close proximity, et cetera. But just the ability to equip your employees, your tenants with this information, and it's greatly helpful as well.

James Harris:

Awesome. Thanks, Peter. Yeah, I mean, something interesting I've seen is to your point, you can engrave it or you can paint it. So a lot of scrap yards when they see something that's engraved or painted, it's just like, "Hey, this was unwanted. Whoever's vehicle this came off of, they didn't want it." So there's different steps that can be taken.

The other thing I will mention that from a consumer standpoint, and me personally, if I, now that I know there's no good reason why somebody should be lying underneath a vehicle in a parking lot or why a vehicle should be on a jack in a parking lot. In this day and age with cell phones, smartphones, I would say obviously don't engage the individual and probably safely distance yourself from that individual and maybe not even draw attention to yourself, but you can capture some of this footage to help kind of triangulate and help not just the person who's being the target, but also our services.

We can see our cameras are about 22 feet up in the air if you're doing the mobile trailer solution. We have a pretty good vantage point throughout all these different parking lots, but you can imagine you can hide behind a vehicle pretty easily. And so being able to have, sorry, other video footage maybe from a cell phone or something like that that can help us pinpoint who exactly was under the vehicle can be very useful.

Also, I want to point out that even though we've used the thermal imaging cameras on our D3 Unit to detect thermal imprints and alert us in real time, even though the alerts, there can be quite a few alerts, right? With Adam's team and the proactive monitoring, or maybe you even choose to proactively monitor your parking lot yourself, or you have somebody who would like to do that, you can use the thermal imaging cameras in daytime to spot different types of loitering. You can see somebody laying underneath a vehicle. So if you're proactively controlling the camera and spinning the thermal imaging camera around, you can kind of see what's going on in your parking lot outside of just the normal activity of somebody walking from their car to the entrance. So that is also useful.

We've noticed that folks, when we have our units deployed, they want to park next to the trailers even if the trailers are totally at the back end of the parking lot. In other words, I know when I go to Home Depot or the grocery store, I like to look for the nearest parking spot. I don't want to park all the way towards the end. Most parking lots are built to handle Black Friday crowds. So they're quite big in those parking stalls all the way in the back, can be almost a football field distance away. But we found that even if we do have our trailers parked towards the furthest regions of those parking lots, people like to park underneath them because they know people aren't going to try their luck next to them.

So these cameras, not only do they enhance your brands, give your customers and employees an increased peace of mind while they're about their business, but people who are not criminals, they love them. They understand that this is private property and they're well within their rights to surveil what happens on their property. And so it's not like a big brother feeling at all, and they know that, "Hey, no one's going to try to smash my windows or take my catalytic converter out next to this unit." So anyways, so here, we're coming up on time for questions. So I think we'll just skip through the big picture. I think we covered quite a bit of this, but yeah, we're going to start fielding some questions. So again, use that question field there on the side and let us know what you think. In the meantime, Peter, Adam, any kind of closing thoughts on this subject?

Adam Sammons:

Yeah. Thank you, James. Just wanted to touch a little bit more on what Peter said, just some of the things you can do to help as a consumer yourself prevent this from happening. James, you had mentioned parking your well-lit areas. Peter had mentioned having the VIN number engraved on the catalytic converter itself. You can also paint it a brighter color, which helps, it prevents them from being able to scrap it as easily after the theft occurs. One of the things that you can also do is reinforce it with rebar. That makes it much more difficult when they go underneath the car to try to sell off the catalytic converter. That makes it much more difficult and a lot of local shops can assist with those solutions as well. So just wanted to touch a little bit more on some of the things that can be done to help prevent that theft.

James Harris:

Awesome. Thank you. So one question we had from Joseph is, "Can you attach these cameras onto a trailer tower like a police department already owns, or does it have to be on our trailer?" The short answer is no. Our proprietary system, there's only a single cable that runs up the telescoping mast on our mobile units that plugs into our cameras. So I mean, in theory, assuming it's the same power supply and same connection, maybe, but typically we don't go that route. But that is a great question.

And then also, Joseph asked a follow-up question, "Can you have an LPR running in the background of your camera?" Yes. So we do have LPR capabilities. It is actually in beta right now. So I would encourage folks who are interested in discussing our solution to reach out to us and let's figure out exactly what you need in an LPR solution. And we do have several customers who are running our beta right now before we make a general release to our broader customer base, but we are LPR enabled. Great questions.

All right. We have another question here. "We are a retail store in Texas and see a lot of theft in our parking lots. How can you help your customers to learn to partner cameras and lights?" That is a great question. So I think it goes back to that indirect messaging that can be leveraged on the audio feature of our D3 and doing some prerecorded messages. I don't know about you, but when I get in my car to go home from the office, I kind of go in autopilot mode a little bit. So I don't notice a lot of things outside of what's important like the car in front of me, the car sides me, make sure I'm being a good driver, a good citizen that way. But if I'm going to the same parking lot, I might not notice that there's a trailer there.

So I think if I'm going to pick up milk or something at the same grocery store or something like that, we don't notice a lot of things. We could tend to have the horse blinders on a bit of a tunnel vision. So to your point, to your retail store in Texas, I would say let's leverage the audio messages to draw people's attention to the units. We don't want to come out and say, at least I don't think, "Hey, park next to these units, you have a better chance of not being broken into." I think that would be a bit too on the nose. But you can say, "Hey, thank you for coming and shopping today. I hope you enjoy your visit. Please note that we're monitoring the parking lot for your safety. The trailers are here for your safety and no other reason."

So we have one client who, for example, during the Christmas shopping season, would actually play Christmas music over the loudspeakers. So again, you get out of your car, you hear an audio message, you'd be curious to see where it's coming from. "Oh, it's coming from this trailer over there and it looks like there's some cameras. Oh, awesome. That's great. I didn't realize there were a camera that was over there. Maybe I'm going to go repark my car next to it." So great questions. Thank you. Another question, "As a police department, we want to help educate local business owners about protecting their lots. What do you recommend?" Sure. And then Peter, Adam, you want to weigh in on this?

Adam Sammons:

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. As far as parking lot protection, and James, I also wanted to add onto the previous question as well. A lot of our clients, we've noticed that people just kind of naturally gravitate towards, especially the LiveView units. As you mentioned, you have the audio broadcast, you have the lights. We have definitely noticed that people do naturally gravitate toward those. So that does just tend to happen when those LiveView units are installed.

As far as a police department and educating local businesses, just as we talked about earlier, just as far as a business owner, encouraging the hybrid vehicles perhaps to park closer to the entrance, we had already touched on that a little bit, just making sure that the parking lots are well-lit. We had talked about a hybrid solution with security guards as well, perhaps using a roving patrol, a marked security vehicle, utilizing solutions such as the security guards in conjunction with the LiveView monitoring definitely will make a difference in the parking lot safety. And creating that atmosphere in the parking lot, that really encourages people to feel safe coming in and parking their car there.

Peter Platten:

And I think it's important for those businesses, anytime that a vehicle is in a static position for an extended period of time, that's what welcomes the thieves. So if the business owners in some way, they can have the employees frequent a lot or someone frequent a lot just to create a presence of their own, I think is greatly helpful. But I think the awareness, it's for the business owners, but it's for the everyday consumers as well. It's parking at their home, parking in the garage as often as possible, ensuring that when they leave their vehicles, when they go to, when they attend movies, we're all getting back out into the world now, being able to get back to the movie theaters, but those commuter lots that they're leaving their car at, anything they can do to position their vehicle where there's more traffic, more activity is going to be the best thing for them.

James Harris:

Awesome. Thanks, Peter. Thanks, Adam. Another question from, or I guess a set of questions from Alyssa. "What about those anti-theft devices that some people install on their car, and what you say are the most targeted cars or trucks?" I'm happy to fill this one, or Peter or Adam if you want to fill it, go right ahead.

Peter Platten:

Absolutely. I mean, you already touched on it, James. I mean, speaking of the hybrid vehicles and then vehicles with height, the vehicles with height, they make it much easier because they don't need to use the jack to jack up the vehicle so they can get in and out much faster. So those are definitely the... But also, like I said earlier as well, reaching out to local shops to find out what vehicles are being targeted in your area.

‍James Harris:

Awesome. And this will be our final question and just kind of a closing thoughts on this one. Alyssa, thank you. Great question. So as I mentioned, I don't think a lot of people are car people. We use cars out of necessity to get from work to home to errands and stuff like that. And so you may not notice that it's gone and you may not take the proactive steps to put one of those anti-theft devices on there, even though it may be effective. I think if you do, great. But I think, and even though catalytic converter theft is on the rise, and we saw on the first slide that it's order of magnitude worse than it was just a year ago, it's incredible that it's trending that way.

I personally, it's never happened to me. I don't have a first degree connection to use LinkedIn language. I don't have somebody I know personally who it's happened to. I probably know people who know people that it's happened to, but I just don't think it's one of those things. And I park mostly outside too, and I drive a truck that actually has a bit of a lift on it. So I'd probably be a pretty easy target, but I don't know if I am going to go to the length to actually have an anti-theft device installed on the vehicle. But I mean, I'm rolling the dice and that's just kind of a personal preference. So I think they're obviously effective.

It's hard to cut through rebar, it's hard to cut through stainless steel, and I mean you still can, but it's going to take considerably longer time to do so. So I do think they're effective. I just think for a larger audience, especially people like me who know it's a problem, but just I just don't know if it's ever going to happen to me, it's just kind of a risk that I take. But I think it's enough of a problem where businesses and a lot of people, especially in hot geographical areas for this issue, that they want to take these kinds of steps.

I think the good bulk of people on this webinar wouldn't take time out of their busy days if they weren't very least interested in taking some actual steps to help have this not happen anymore in their jurisdictions or on their properties and really help their employees, help their customers or help themselves to not be a victim of this crime because it can be very costly.

Anyways, thank you so much everybody for joining. Peter, Adam, thank you so much. This has been a lot of fun to talk about and to discuss. As mentioned, I really do think that LiveView Technologies paired with Protos, we're in a unique solution to approach a problem with advanced technology. Security guards are very effective, and our solution paired with Protos allows security personnel to be in multiple places at once and to leverage the thermal imaging and the 24/7 recording and the visible deterrence, the audio deterrence to really help turn the tide on this issue. So anyways, thank you so much. Enjoy the rest of your day and take care. Thank you.

Peter Platten:

Thanks, James.