Butler County is looking into added Internet security.

Butler County Commissioners discussed met Wednesday whether to use equipment from the Center for Internet Security and the Department of State to monitor unwanted traffic on Internet-connected devices in the building.

Commissioner Kevin Boozel, said the “Albert Senors" — named after Albert Einstein — detect intrusions on lines connected to devices in the government center.

“This system would watch for any intrusion on anything that accepts an IP address,” he said. “We could turn it on and off on site. We have many (sensors); this is a different one. ... It’s sort of like a smoke alarm.”

The sensors were offered to Pennsylvania counties following the 2020 election, Boozel said, after the Department of State procured the services from the Center for Internet Security. Currently, 50 counties are using the system after federal Help America Vote Act funds provided the services free for three years.

County solicitor Wil White said in the meeting that the technology would be free to Butler County for that amount of time, but only if they approve the agreement for services before year’s end.

“We didn’t jump on it, because not many other counties did, we took a ‘wait and see’ approach,”he said. “Butler is one of 12, I think, that’s not involved with it.”

White described the traffic monitoring system as a way to avoid a massive Internet intrusion. He added that there is a termination clause within the agreement with the Department of State so they relinquish services within a certain period.

“There’s concerns over the Department of State having any influence over our elections,” Boozel said.

Commissioner Leslie Osche motioned to table the discussion, saying she’d like to know the cost to get the service directly, not from the Department of State, before making a decision.

Wil White said he would present more information at the November meeting.