What is 1st party monitoring AKA proprietary monitoring?

• A. Do it yourself—monitoring central station on the protected premises or for properties off premises
• B. Third-party monitoring by an external firm
• C. Customer self-monitoring through personal devices only
• D. No monitoring, security is passive only

Answer: (A)

1st party, or proprietary, monitoring means the alarm company that installs your system also owns and runs the monitoring operation. Signals from the protected premises are received by the company’s own central station, rather than by an external firm. This setup can involve a central station located on the company’s premises or at a facility affiliated with the company offsite. That’s why the described option—doing it yourself with monitoring handled by the company’s own central station—fits the definition. In contrast, third-party monitoring uses an external firm, customer self-monitoring relies on the user’s own devices without the company’s central station, and no monitoring means there’s no active monitoring at all.