Vehicle tracking - Expert commentary

Artificial intelligence allows machines to do jobs previously done by people. When it comes to security and surveillance, this technology allows cameras and control room equipment to identify a wide range of threats automatically and in real time across hundreds or even thousands of cameras. What does this do? It allows security teams to take immediate action to protect people and assets.   AI technology and surveillance solutions Artificial Intelligence technology built into surveill...

Public spaces in cities and suburbs are important places for community development and promoting outdoor recreation. These areas may include main streets, parks, promenades, band shells and fields. Such locations are often utilised by public event planners for community activities, including summer festivals, wintertime ice skating rink installations, music concerts and art fairs. As the year drew to a close, holiday and Christmas markets as well as major New Year’s Eve events, presented...

According to the reports of not-for-profit organisation Gun Violence Archive, the year 2018 has seen 323 mass shooting incidents as of November 28 in the United States. This number is 346 for the year 2017 and 382 for 2016 (more statistics are available here), with “mass shooting” defined as cases where four or more people are shot or killed in the same time period and location. While definitions of mass shooting vary with organisations in the US, the count of over 300 incidents per...

In my coverage of China Tariffs impacting the security industry over four recent articles, products on the tariff schedules routinely integrated into security solutions included burglar and fire alarm control and transmission panels, video surveillance lenses, HDTV cameras used for broadcast use cases and fiber optic media converters. The general ‘callout’ of ADP (Automatic Data Processing) devices and peripherals technically includes servers, workstations and microcomputers, all o...

It amazes me how in a few short years security systems have gone from simple, dumb cameras witnessing events to intelligent eyes, ears, speech and touch solutions that boost situational awareness far beyond human capabilities. It seems the only senses missing from the equation now are smell and taste. And who knows, someone might be working on those in a lab somewhere right now. But what’s really fascinating to me is how the Internet of Things (IoT) has opened a world of possibilities for...

In 1901 New York state made a pioneering regulation move and became the first US state to require automobile owners to register their vehicles. This marked the beginning of regulation on modern traffic, which - following decades of development - resulted in a multi-layer concept of regulation relating to vehicles and driver’s licenses, traffic signs and insurance mechanisms that we are all familiar with nowadays. While certain parallels can be drawn between the early days of cars and our...

For the past several years, there has been a focus by integrators and customers to assure that their card-based access control systems are secure. To give businesses an extra incentive to meet their cybersecurity threats, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has decided to hold the business community responsible for failing to implement good cybersecurity practices and is now filing lawsuits against those that don't. For instance, the FTC filed a lawsuit against D-Link and its U.S. subsidiary, al...

A deep native integration of Bosch cameras with software from ISS proactively catalyses the best in security and surveillance, while providing advanced intelligent video tools. ISS SecurOS provides intelligent enterprise video management solutions with emphasis on providing scalability and flexibility to meet the customer’s needs. Deeply integrating built-in video analytics from Bosch cameras improves operator efficiency and situational awareness to manage complex environments. ISS Secu...

Schools today are charged to provide an environment that is both safe and conducive to learning, which can be difficult considering the range of security incidents and challenges they face, including bullying, fights, graffiti, theft and more. In addition to working within often tight budgetary constraints, a main challenge is to provide the highest level of security in an aesthetically pleasing way that doesn’t make students feel as if they are in prison. While these two needs may seem...

It had been a particularly slow night. The plant security guard had just made his rounds on this Sunday evening shift. As soon as he passed the weighing scales, he could enter the guard shack and get off his feet. Challenging a curious incident However, on this night, he noticed the waste vendor’s truck sitting half on and half off the scale. He stopped dead in his tracks to see if the truck would back up and completely sit on the scale. It never did. The observant guard walked up to the...

With the ever-growing availability of video data thanks to the low cost of high-resolution video cameras and storage, artificial intelligence (AI) and deep learning analytics now have become a necessity for the physical security industry, including access control and intrusion detection. Minimising human error and false positives are the key motivations for applying AI technologies in the security industry. What is artificial intelligence? Artificial intelligence is the ability of machines to...

Video surveillance across the world is growing exponentially and its major application is in both public safety and law enforcement. Traditionally, it has been fixed surveillance where cameras provide live streams from fixed cameras situated in what is considered strategic locations. But they are limited in what they can see given by their very definition of being "fixed." The future of video surveillance includes the deployment of more mobile video surveillance with the benefits it offers. Ins...

Atlanta’s new $1.5 billion stadium, home to the NFL Atlanta Falcons football team and MLS Atlanta United football club and site of the recent NCAA national college football championship, is protecting fans, personnel and athletes from terrorists and errant drivers from using vehicles as weapons. While the threat of terrorists planning to attack soft targets, such as stadiums increases, stadium security professionals, such as those at the new Mercedes-Benz Stadium, must look for the weak p...

The way we purchase services and products is changing. The traditional concept of buying and owning a product is giving way to the idea that it is possible to purchase the services it offers instead. This approach has come from the consumer realisation that it is the outcome that is important rather than the tools to achieve it. For example, this approach is evident with the rise of music streaming services as opposed to downloads or physical products.   With the physical...

Cameras capable of recording video at 60 frames per second (fps) are becoming widely available in the security industry. It’s important to understand what 60-fps brings to the table for the security industry and how to leverage the technology for particular scenarios. Capturing video at 60-fps represents a unique application. System integrators typically use much lower frame rates, ranging from 7- to up to 30-fps. The potential for an incident might only represent 1%, or less, of the tim...

In recent news, trucks, lorries and vans have been the weapon used in terror attacks around the globe, and other sources suggest that autonomous vehicles, particularly self-driving trucks and lorries, could be a reality sooner than we think. It poses the question: How can we prevent autonomous vehicles from being used as weapons in terror attacks? Accessories for terror attacks We already have ‘self-driving’ technologies in the cars which are on our roads today, from lane-departur...

The demand for security consultancy services has increased as recent terror events have highlighted the need for effective and proportionate mitigation measures. Security training has seen an increase in demand, especially for technical courses in the areas of access control and CCTV.   Security management training has also risen, except in the oil and gas sector where demand dropped significantly; this is attributed to the suppressed oil price. However, recently there are sig...

During 2017, we’ve enjoyed stable economic growth for a number of years now; we’re not running into as much resistance for security entrances as we did, say, seven to nine years ago. Hardening perimeters against active shooters Compared to other security products such as cameras and card readers, security entrances are a big investment and considered somewhat of a luxury: during downturns we’re among the first to hit the “cutting room floor.” Now, however, fueled...

With the changing “lone wolf” style of terrorism, there will be a trend toward many more installations of vehicle access control systems and smaller numbers of units. Where a university, military base or airport might have 20-plus systems scattered among its grounds, there will be a growing number of smaller applications needing one, two or three systems. These will include customers such as primary and secondary education facilities; pedestrian locations such as shopping centres,...

For fleet managers, the control and management of your fleet begins with control and management of the keys that start the vehicles. For some, this critical task is left to a very basic – and incredibly low-tech – solution, such as hooks mounted on a pegboard with a notebook for signing vehicle keys in and out. There are a number of shortcomings with this type of “system,” most notably that employees tend to ignore it altogether. With this type of honour system approach,...

Today ‘terrorism’ has become a word we use and hear every day. The goal of terrorism is a media product - information delivered to nearly every house in the world. So, the weapon of terrorism is information. Therefore, the way we defend and prevent terrorism must also be based on intelligent processing of information - and an early awareness of potential threats and effective preventive action may eliminate most attacks. Video analytics, automated surveillance and AI decision-making...

In a world where hacking and denial of service are everyday threats, many feel that it is about time for the world of the Internet of Things (IoT) to undergo a reality check over its strategy and promotion before disaster strikes, reputations are lost and investors pull up stakes and run for the hills.   What is new about IoT? Having made, lost and then re-made my fortune in and around the industry over the past 20-plus years, I cannot help but smile over the level of hype — an...

Nowadays, there is a lot of hype around data and its utility for almost any industry – from security and law enforcement to business operations and retail. While we are inundated with information about data and its significance to business success, technological development and fulfilling the promise of the Internet of Things, we don’t always get practical feedback as to how to obtain this valuable data from the resources available to us. Security teams feel this challenge acutely....

On 19th December, 2016, the news exploded with information about a vehicle attack on a Christmas market in Berlin that killed at least 12 people and injured more than 50 others. Less than a month before, the US State Department had warned about such attacks in public places throughout Europe, saying that extremist groups including the Islamic State and Al Qaeda were planning to focus on such locales during the Holiday Season. Two types of vehicle access point To stop these attacks, security pr...

When most people think of the term artificial intelligence, science fiction films both old and new tend to come to mind. Whether it’s the military network Skynet becoming self-aware in The Terminator and wiping out the majority of mankind with nuclear weapons, or the hosts in Westworld developing consciousness and turning against their human masters, Hollywood tends to paint a grim picture of this area of technology. The reality is that artificial intelligence – or AI...

Cultural and hospitality venues are attractive targets for terrorists due to their public accessibility Over the past 40 years there have been numerous attacks carried out against cultural and hospitality venues in the furtherance of religious, ideological, criminal or political beliefs. By default, cultural and hospitality venues are attractive targets for terrorists due to their public accessibility, the volumes of visitors and guests or because of what the venue represents;...

The landscape for end-to-end solutions is not designed to address thelong-term evolving needs of customers The video surveillance industry has reached an important crossroads where manufacturers can choose to continue in one direction that solely focuses on their own products and profits, or to move forward in another direction that emphasises building partnerships for the greater good of the community. On one side lies the short road of end-to-end, proprietary solutions fro...

Joining Pelco in late 2015, Sharad Shekhar is responsible for the entire global video business and is leading the charge to reinvigorate the Pelco brand with system integrators Back in the day, you literally couldn’t speak with a security company about a video surveillance project without the Pelco name coming up. It had a loyal following and an extremely large installation base. Over the years, that changed and the fervour with which integrators referred to the brand se...

Portable crash barriers & traffic access control systems allow security integrators to expand their deployments for municipal surveillance and critical infrastructure The Pope does it. The Democratic and Republican National Conventions do it. Leading universities and police departments do it. Just what does this diverse list of people and organisations have in common? They have all used high-security portable barriers at their events with good success. According to manufa...

Barriers certified by the US Department of State can be trusted to withstand specified weights and speeds This time of year, in the early spring, there pops up a plethora of trade shows in which security vendors can present their newest marvels to potential customers. Not to be outdone are the barriers manufacturers. Their products will range from a large metal planter to be placed in an area where no traffic is allowed to movable barriers which lower to let a car drive over...