Key management - Round table discussions

There is safety in numbers, or so the expression goes. Generally speaking, several employees working together tend to be safer than a single employee working alone. Even so, some environments require that workers complete their jobs alone, thus presenting a unique combination of security vulnerabilities. The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) defines a lone worker as “an employee working alone, such as in a confined space or isolated location.” We asked this we...

Headlines of violence in our schools are a reminder of the need to keep educational institutions safe. In fact, if there is a positive aspect to the constant bombardment of headlines, it is that it keeps our attention perpetually focused on how to improve school security. But what is the role of physical security systems? As the new school year begins, we asked this week’s Expert Panel Roundtable: Are schools safer because of physical security systems? Why or why not? 

Faces captured by video cameras could be perceived as an invasion of privacy, as could images captured through residential windows or that involve private or proprietary information. Fortunately, modern video systems incorporate technological features that help avoid an inadvertent invasion of privacy, while preserving any data that may be needed by authorized persons. For the latest commentary, we turn to our Expert Panel Roundtable with this week’s question: What new features of video sy...

Residential security and smart homes are rapidly changing facets of the larger physical security marketplace, driven by advances in consumer technology and concerns about rising crime rates. During the COVID-19 pandemic, many people spent more time at home and became more aware of the need for greater security. As workplaces opened back up, returning workers turned to technology to help them keep watch over their homes from afar. We asked this week’s Expert Panel Roundtable: What are the...

Security systems are vital to any company. Nowadays, however, they can also provide additional benefits to any enterprise beyond protecting people, assets and facilities. Specifically, systems that were previously focused on security can now be leveraged in new ways to benefit the broader enterprise. When this happens, the security department transitions from a ‘cost centre’ to a repository of data that can benefit the whole company, and even contribute to the bottom line. We asked t...

The topic of video analytics has been talked and written about for decades, and yet is still one of the cutting-edge themes in the physical security industry. Some say yesterday’s analytics systems tended to overpromise and underdeliver, and there are still some skeptics. However, newer technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) are reinvigorating the sector and enabling it to finally live up to its promise. We asked this week’s Expert Panel Roundtable: What new technologies a...

The concept of how security systems can contribute to the broader business goals of a company is not new. It seems we have been talking about benefits of security systems beyond “just” security for more than a decade. Given the expanding role of technologies in the market, including video and access control, at what point is the term “security” too restrictive to accurately describe what our industry does? We asked the Expert Panel Roundtable for their responses to this p...

Hospitals and healthcare facilities are an important vertical sector in the physical security market. Protecting healthcare facilities is a rich opportunity to leverage the value of physical security systems that range from video to access control to newer location and asset protection systems. But understanding how technology can excel in the healthcare vertical requires that we first identify and understand what these institutions need. Therefore, we asked this week’s Expert Panel Roundt...