The Challenge: A top American University is a home to over 28,000 students and 1,500 staff members. Its campus expands to 960 acres with 285 buildings, 13 of which are student residences. Having visibility and awareness of campus events and activities is critical to the protection for all. The university also recognized how essential it is to have clarity and insights on social media platforms for the increased security and safety of its campus and student body.

The Solution: The University understood the need to have a digital risk investigation tool which enabled them to apply advanced algorithms to large volumes of unstructured data. As a result, they reached out to Media Sonar to help them gain access to online insights. Media Sonar equipped the University with the insights for the security and risk management needs and team.

The Case: During February 2018, a community group selected the University to host their meeting. The group’s beliefs created a significant amount of controversy between students and faculty which sparked protests campus-wide.

The Assistant Chief of Police, stated, “We wanted to better understand the situation weeks before the event was expected to take place. Media Sonar allowed us to understand who these key players were and the number of people that were expected to attend from across the state.”

Using Media Sonar leading up to the event, the University’s security team created daily intelligence alerts. The alerts had the most relevant posts which provided the security team with enough situational awareness to put a plan in place for the event.

“We determined that three key groups were planning to come together on the day of the event with large amounts of people,” stated Assistant Chief of Police. This information allowed the security team to prepare for the event and arrange for enough personnel to be on the scene.

With all the online insights gathered from Media Sonar, on the day of the protest, the university’s security team had a plan in place, including physical barriers around specific areas, a designated “no man’s” land, and additional policing support from the city to ensure the security and safety of all.

The Result: With the data gathered and insights gleaned using Media Sonar, the University’s security team was able to successfully prepare and manage both the scheduled meeting and opposing groups.