What is a control room or emergency and service control room (NSL)?

The core task is alarm handling. Connected intruder, fire and hold-up alarm systems report to the NSL; there an operator checks the signal, verifies it by callback or video and triggers the response plan agreed with the client. Guard tour monitoring, lift emergency calls, lone-worker alarm systems and technical fault signals from building services come on top. Operators are usually qualified as NSL specialists and work in shifts so the control room is staffed 365 days a year, around the clock.

Approval follows fixed rules. VdS Schadenverhütung approves control rooms under the VdS 3138 guideline, which sets structural, technical and organisational requirements (VdS 3138-1); the alarm receiving centre itself must meet DIN EN 50518. The guideline has two parts: part 1 describes the requirements, part 2 the approval procedure. Many clients and insurers make this approval a contractual condition (as of 10/2026).

In practice, it is not only alarms that ring in the control room. Employees call in sick, clients ask whether the patrol has been done, prospects want a quote, suppliers want to sell. Each of these calls occupies a seat meant for alarm handling. The Lünendonk study 2026 names “customer service and communication” as an AI field for security providers; 86 % expect AI to be standard within two to three years (rationell reinigen, 30 Sept 2026, as of 10/2026).

Empfango does not replace an NSL. Alarm connection, verification and response stay with the approved control room and its staff. Empfango takes over the phone line in front of it: it answers routine calls, records sick calls and information requests in a structured way with name, callback number, site and request, answers questions from the knowledge base and forwards only what a human has to decide, with a ring timeout and a callback as fallback. Every caller hears a fixed announcement at the start that they are talking to an AI assistant and can ask for a person at any time.

Small and medium-sized security companies often have no NSL of their own. There, the night line runs on the dispatcher's mobile. For these companies, automated first-line intake is the step that relieves on-call duty without building a control room. How clients get patrol information from LiteLog data by phone is shown under client information line; the overview is on AI phone assistant for security services. Processing runs in the EU, call audio is not stored permanently and a data processing agreement is part of every plan, see privacy.