Physical security - Security beat
Newer facial recognition systems are scalable and provide more accurate results, and the end-user selects the parameters of system performance to suit their own application needs. “We have developed algorithms that can be optimised in various compute environments, whether in a small chip inside an edge device or on a large server device,” says Ido Amidi, Oosto’s Vice President of Products and Business Development. “It all depends on client needs. We can do it all withou...
It’s been almost exactly a decade since HID Global launched the world's first university pilot of smartphones carrying secure mobile IDs. A lot has changed in the following 10 years. Today’s technology has matured, advanced, and proliferated across a variety of high-value use cases. To catch up on the latest developments in mobile access, we contacted Luc Merredew, Product Marketing Director, Physical Access Control, at HID Global. Q: What has changed since the first pilo...
Video is an enormous wellspring of unstructured data in the enterprise environment. Finding new ways to use video data requires easy access for analysis. Gone are the days when video was recorded just to be played back later. New computer capabilities can analyse video to provide business intelligence and trends, all of which requires that a lot of unstructured data be captured, stored and kept immediately accessible. It's a driving force for companies specialising in video storage such as Quan...
A new generation of video cameras is poised to boost capabilities dramatically at the edge of the IP network, including more powerful artificial intelligence (AI) and higher resolutions, and paving the way for new applications that would have previously been too expensive or complex. Technologies at the heart of the coming new generation of video cameras are Ambarella’s newest systems on chips (SoCs). Ambarella’s CV5S and CV52S product families are bringing a new level of on-camera...
The city of Baltimore has banned the use of facial recognition systems by residents, businesses and the city government (except for police). The criminalisation in a major U.S. city of an important emerging technology in the physical security industry is an extreme example of the continuing backlash against facial recognition throughout the United States. Facial recognition technology ban Several localities – from Portland, Oregon, to San Francisco, from Oakland, California, to Boston &n...
For more than 22 years, Open Options, Addison, Texas, has developed access control solutions that connect to leading security technologies to deliver a full-scale solution based on each customer’s unique needs. In 2018, Open Options was acquired by ACRE, which already owned the Vanderbilt and ComNet brands. To find out the latest, we interviewed Chuck O’Leary, President of Open Options. Q: It has been two and a half years since Open Options was acquired by ACRE. Briefly describe tha...
When 150,000 video surveillance cameras get hacked, it’s big news. Even if the main reason for the hack was to make a point. Even if the major consequence is bad publicity for a video company (and, by extension, the entire video surveillance industry). The target of the hack was Silicon Valley startup Verkada, which has collected a massive trove of security-camera data from its 150,000 surveillance cameras inside hospitals, companies, police departments, prisons and schools. Previously, V...
Following its recent acquisition, Vidsys will continue to operate, now as an ‘An ARES Security Company’. The Vidsys brand is known worldwide for its PSIM (physical security information management) solution and the acquisition will accelerate the next generation of products that incorporate Artificial Intelligence (AI) to enhance their value to Vidsys clients and the overall market. ARES Security Corporation has developed and deployed security and public safety software solutio...
At an Oldsmar, Fla., water treatment facility on Feb. 5, an operator watched a computer screen as someone remotely accessed the system monitoring the water supply and increased the amount of sodium hydroxide from 100 parts per million to 11,100 parts per million. The chemical, also known as lye, is used in small concentrations to control acidity in the water. In larger concentrations, the compound is poisonous – the same corrosive chemical used to eat away at clogged drains. The impact o...
Convergint Technologies’ rapid growth has come through a combination of organic growth and acquisitions — they have acquired 35 companies since 2014. Growth has been a focus since day one when the founders started the systems integration company with 10 colleagues in a basement. Today, the diverse company includes more than 5,000 employees globally. As technology has advanced and business practices have evolved, Convergint’s core values and beliefs have guided their path forwa...
Artificial intelligence (AI) is more than a buzzword. AI is increasingly becoming part of our everyday lives, and a vital tool in the physical security industry. In 2020, AI received more attention than ever, and expanded the ways it can contribute value to physical security systems. This article will revisit some of those development at year-end, including links back to the originally published content. In the security market today, AI is expanding the use cases, making technologies more power...
An impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has been to accelerate change. In 2020, the security industry was among many others that sought to adapt to shifting norms. In the process, we grabbed onto new opportunities for change and, in many cases, re-evaluated how we have done business for decades. If necessity is the mother of invention, perhaps crisis is the mother of acceleration. This article will reflect on how these themes impacted the physical security industry in 2020, based on content we publ...
Consolidation continued in the physical security marketplace in the turbulent year 2020. There were several mega-deals in addition to shuffling among small and medium-sized companies. Here is a sampling of M&A from this year, compiled from our archive of company news. With the changing economic climate, how much more is ahead in 2021? Stay tuned. Wesco merges with Anixter WESCO International, Inc., a provider of business-to-business (B2B) distribution, logistics services and supply chain...
The coronavirus pandemic had a monumental impact on all aspects of the business world, including the security industry. However, amid the gloom and doom, many security professionals also saw opportunity: New ways the industry’s products could be applied to address the challenges of coping with the virus. This article will review some of those opportunities, based on our reporting throughout the year and including links back to the original articles. During and after the pandemic, security...
The cloud is here to stay. Its resilience and ability to connect the world during during the COVID-19 pandemic has proved its worth, even to the uninitiated who have now witnessed first-hand the value of connected systems. Video and access control as a service provides a flexible and fluid security and business solution to meet the demands of a rapidly evolving industry, where the changing threat landscape means investing in the cloud is an investment towards success. This article will look ba...
Many employers faced a need to ramp up hiring of drivers to meet a higher demand for product deliveries and transportation logistics during the COVID-19 pandemic. To meet the demand for drivers, employers had to make quick hiring decisions while also ensuring products were still being delivered in a timely fashion. Safe work environment Businesses have a duty of care to provide a safe working environment for their employees and contractors. It is therefore important to limit exposing dri...
Close collaboration with customers has been a hallmark of the physical security industry for decades. And yet, less ability to collaborate face-to-face to discuss customer needs has been a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic. “True innovation, which comes from close collaboration with customers, is more difficult to achieve remotely,” said Howard Johnson, President and COO, AMAG Technology, adding “Not being able to visit in person has not been helpful. Kurt John, Chief Cybe...
The COVID-19 pandemic has provided a double challenge to physical security systems integrators. For one thing, they have had to adapt their own businesses to survive and thrive during the pandemic. On the other hand, they have also been faced with new challenges to serve their customer’s changing needs. Global pandemic effects One integrator company, North American Video (NAV) took the now-familiar steps most companies confronted to adapt their business model to operations in a global pa...
John Wiegand died in 1986, but the communications protocol that bears his name is still alive and well, connecting access control readers to controllers using two wires – one to transmit “zeros” and the other to transmit “ones.” The Wiegand protocol persists despite its limitations, including one-way communication, lack of encryption, and inability to manage the readers in a system centrally. In a Wiegand system, a controller provides no acknowledgement that data ha...
Historically, concerns about inclusion and diversity have not been widely discussed in the security market. In the last couple of years, however, the Security Industry Association (SIA) and other groups have worked to raise awareness around issues of diversity and inclusion. Specifically, SIA’s Women in Security Forum has focused on the growing role of women in all aspects of security, and SIA’s RISE community has focused on “rising stars” in an industry previously domin...
Ethics are an important – but some might argue, undervalued – aspect of the security marketplace. To kindle the industry’s interest in ethics, the Security Industry Association (SIA) in early 2019 created a working group on Ethics in Security Technology. The working group developed a list of ethical principles, which were approved by the organisation’s Executive Committee and Board of Directors and became the SIA Membership Code of Ethics. SIA member companies must adher...
If one employee stands less than six feet away from another employee, a fob attached to a lanyard around his or her neck emits an auditory beep – an immediate reminder to observe social distancing. If an employee were to be diagnosed with COVID-19, a cloud-based database provides a record of who at the company the sick employee had contact with. These capabilities of HID Location Services ensure social distancing and provide contact tracing to enable companies to return to work safely. Th...
The general public doesn’t give much thought to the important role of security officers in creating and promoting safer environments. The low-profile work of security officers is vital to protecting people, places and property. During the pandemic, newer aspects to that role have emerged. Security personnel have been called on to perform diverse tasks such as managing queues at the supermarket, safeguarding testing centres and hospitals, ensuring food deliveries, and supporting police pa...
Arteco’s VCA video analytics system is their latest new product, signalling a move from machine vision-based analytics to deep learning video analytics. A server – separate from the Arteco video management system (VMS) – manages the algorithms for the analytics. Arteco has been field-testing the product for a year and a half and had planned to launch it officially at ISC West in March (which was postponed). In lieu of the trade show launch, the company has been presenting the p...
The drive for learning doesn’t diminish, even in times of a global pandemic. To accommodate the demands of social distancing, more training today happens online. “We have seen unprecedented international demand for our portfolio of online training courses ranging from small installation companies to the largest organisations, across a wide range of sectors,” says Jerry Alfandari, Group Marketing Manager of Linx International Group, a U.K. training firm. “More than ever,...
Even though ISC West 2020 was cancelled, many of the product introductions planned for the trade show still happened. For example, physical security and secure identification company Identiv introduced the Hirsch Velocity Cirrus and MobilisID. Hirsch Velocity Cirrus is a cloud-based Access Control as a Service (ACaaS) solution. It is an optimal solution for both end-users and integrators, with lower upfront costs, reduced maintenance, enhanced portability, and the future-proof assurance of auto...
HID Global is introducing a new “flagship” line of access control readers as successors to the iCLASS line. The new HID Signo readers will support 15 different credentialing formats and communicate using the latest NFC (near field communication), BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) and OSDP (Open Supervised Device Protocol) standards. HID Global says the new readers will simplify integration to more secure and mobile credentials. HID Global has invested in a “future-proof”...
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will be participating at ISC West in a big way. Representatives of the federal department will be taking part in more education sessions this year, and the DHS tech-scouting team will be on hand to view the latest technologies on display at the show. Exhibitors – and anyone else at the show – are invited to the “DHS Town Hall” on March 19 (Thursday) at 3:30 p.m. in meeting room Galileo 1001. The aim is for DHS to engage with...
ISC West is being affected only minimally by the COVID-19 coronavirus, which is having an impact on international business travel, specifically to and from China. One consequence of coronavirus travel restrictions is a decision by Reed Exhibitions International not to proceed with a dedicated pavilion for Chinese companies at ISC West, March 17-20. In the main hall, however, some Chinese companies will remain in the show and staff their exhibit booths with U.S. office personnel and resources. I...
At a major music festival, a fan in the crowd aggressively leapt over a barricade to approach a famous artist. Personnel from Force Protection Agency immediately implemented extrication protocol to shield the artist from physical harm, quickly reversed course and calmly led the client away from the threat. Force Protection Agency (FPA) personnel intentionally did not engage the threatening fan in any way, as local venue security personnel were present and tasked with apprehending the rogue fan....
