County to consider Genesys after mass-alert vendor data breach

Davidson County staff on Jan. 8 recommended switching the county’s public-alert system to Genesys following a recent data breach in the existing vendor’s platform that interrupted emergency-notification capability.

An emergency-communications staff member told commissioners the county’s present system lost access to IPAWS — the federal Integrated Public Alert and Warning System — for a short period and experienced loss of contact grouping and other data. "Some of our information was lost. There was a short period of time that we were unable to send notifications to the public," the presenter said.

Staff said Genesys offers features the county needs: the ability to zone messages to specific geographic areas, a dedicated public website and mobile app, interoperability with neighboring municipalities and the option to push information to navigation apps such as Waze.

Under the proposed cost-share arrangement, the county’s annual Genesys cost would be approximately $27,196 with Lexington and Thomasville contributing their portions; staff said the move would lower annual costs versus the current arrangement.

Commissioners asked to place a contract item on the Monday agenda for approval and to finalize the cost-sharing agreement with partner cities.

At the meeting’s close staff confirmed they would bring the contract for board consideration at the next scheduled business meeting.