To: All Faculty & All Academic Professionals & All Civil Service Staff &
           All Undergrad Students & All Grad Students <everybody@illinois.edu> 
    From: "Chief of Police Barbara O'Connor and Mike Corn" <dpscomments@illinois.edu>

Reply-To: dps-mail@illinois.edu
 Subject: UPDATE TO ILLINI-ALERT MESSAGE SENT TODAY

To the campus community:

This morning at 10:40, an Illini-Alert message was sent to 87,000 email 
addresses and cellphones indicating there was an active shooter or threat 
of an active shooter on the Urbana campus. The message was sent 
accidentally while pre-scripted templates used in the Illini-Alert system 
were being updated. The updates were being made in response to user 
feedback in order to enhance information provided in the alerts.

The alert sent today was caused by a person making a mistake. Rather than 
pushing the SAVE button to update the pre-scripted message, the person 
pushed the SUBMIT button. We are working with the provider of the 
Illini-Alert service to implement additional security features in the 
program to prevent this type of error.

The alert system is designed to send all messages as quickly as possible. 
The messages generally leave the sending server within two minutes. This 
design is essential for emergency communications. However, this prevented 
the cancellation of the erroneous alert once it was sent.

Additionally, once we send an emergency message, we are dependent on the 
cellular telephone providers to deliver the text message to the owner of 
the cellphone. This is a recognized issue with all text-messaging 
systems. This is one reason we use multiple communication mechanisms, 
including email and our Emergency Web alert system, which is 
automatically activated when we send an Illini-Alert message. We cannot 
rely solely on text messages to inform our community of an emergency.

The Chief of Police has charged the campus emergency planning office with 
reviewing and documenting todays incident. We are reviewing comments we 
are receiving as a result of the incident and will implement all 
reasonable and appropriate ideas or suggestions.

We recognize the campus community relies on us to provide accurate and 
timely emergency information. We are working diligently to improve our 
processes so that this type of incident does not happen again. Finally, 
we apologize for the confusion and emotional distress caused by the 
initial alert.

Respectfully,

Barbara R. O'Connor, J.D.
Executive Director of Public Safety
Chief of Police
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 
http://www.publicsafety.illinois.edu

Mike Corn
Chief Privacy and Security Officer
Office of the Chief Information Officer
This mailing approved by:The Office of the Chief of Police

This mailing approved by:
The Office of the Chief of Police

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