Month: December 2018

Three Trends Impacting Entertainment Security

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In past blog posts, we’ve discussed the need for weapons screening and how to improve security at performing arts venues. In taking a look at the broader entertainment industry as a whole, the conversation around security looks different.

At large concert venues and sports arenas, we often find that security is already a defined and established practice. These venues typically have a dedicated security team, led by a veteran security chief and supported by a series of technologies and procedures. In contrast, we find that many performing arts venues – primarily those that are not located in big cities – are usually at the beginning of their security journey.

While security and the practice of people screening is not new to the entertainment industry, there have been significant developments in the past five years that have impacted how security directors approach securing these venues. As patron experience, speed and increased detection continue to remain paramount in screening, security directors at these venues are starting to ask themselves what they can be doing better.

With that, let’s explore three ways entertainment security has changed and how these venues are looking beyond traditional security processes and procedures to improve security screening and create a more welcoming visitor experience.

Access to Artists Draws Attention to Stalkers

Weeks after wrapping her worldwide Reputation tour, it was revealed that Taylor Swift’s team was using facial recognition technology to scan for potential stalkers at her shows. Unbeknownst to her concert goers who stopped at kiosks to get a behind-the-scenes glimpse of her rehearsals, the system was secretly recording their faces and immediately sending the data to a “command post” in Nashville that attempted to match hundreds of images to a database of her known stalkers. While Swift has started to receive some backlash over the use of the technology, it represents a growing trend in entertainment security: the need to control stalkers.

To-date, the majority of entertainment venues have taken the same standard approach to security – screening the entire general fan population via a manual bag search and metal detectors. However, as celebrities, athletes and artists provide more access to their fans – think paying $200 extra for a meet-and-greet ahead of the show – security directors are beginning to look beyond traditional screening methods to prevent known assailants from getting close to talent. While Swift’s team is one of the first to come out and acknowledge the use of facial recognition technology to spot and identify stalkers, they are not the first and will certainly not be the last. In the coming years, I expect we will see facial recognition technology leveraged more frequently to identify stalkers. In addition, the use of advanced sensors such as millimeter wave technology will be used to identify any concealed weapons, particularly non-metallic ones, that fans might be attempting to bring in.

Monetizing the Security Experience

Two headlines from earlier this year that really caught my eye when thinking about entertainment security, at sports venues in particular: “Nobody’s Going to Sports in Person Anymore. And No One Seems to Care,” and “College football attendance sees second-largest decline in history.” As ticket prices rise, and as temperatures continue to drop in some regions, a noticeable trend in sports and entertainment is that people simply aren’t going to as many games as they used to. Instead, they are choosing to watch the games from the comfort of their own homes from one of their many devices, often via streaming services.

Because of this shift, heads of these facilities are beginning to explore how they can create more value for the fan experience. Think about what Disney was able to achieve with the introduction of the FASTPASS – pay extra on top of a standard ticket price to spend less time waiting in lines for popular attractions. What if this same concept could be applied to security at concerts and sports games? An improved security experience, whether it be less invasive or a faster process, is one way venues are working to get fans back into seats – and they’re looking at how technology can help them do this.

Protecting Against Insider Threats

Unlike employees who work at airports or office buildings, many of the employees who work at entertainment venues are subcontractors who only work during games or when events are happening. There is a level of employee screening that is happening; however, it varies from venue to venue. For example, if a venue is home to a national sports league team – such as the Boston Bruins – the venue itself needs to meet the NHL standards for security. Employee screening is a component of meeting this standard. Because these venues already have standards in place for games, they tend to follow these standards for all events. However, venues that are not the “home” for a national team do not have a standard set of security practices in place for screening employees that they follow all the time.

The recent shifts in the entertainment landscape means that everyone from C-level executives to security directors at entertainment venues are tackling new security challenges every day. Whether they are hosting the AFC East Championship Game or night two of an artist’s summer tour – fan experience, detection capabilities and the overall speed of security will continue to dictate security processes throughout the entertainment industry. As the industry itself has shifted, we will start to see more of these facilities leveraging new, innovative technologies such biometrics and facial recognition technologies to combat today’s threats.

To learn more about what is ahead for physical security in 2019, check out our recent blog post.

Photo Credit: Jeff Egnaczyk

International Security Expo 2018: The Changing Demographics of the Security Industry

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For years, going to the United Kingdom Security Expo in London has felt like going to a get-together with members of a fairly tight-knit club. Everyone was involved in the business of selling, buying and deploying high-powered security screening gear for airports, government buildings and other hardened locations.

This year, the vibe was noticeably different, with many new faces, from different industries, and with different priorities—emphasis on the word “many.” With the awful increase in mass casualty attacks on soft-targets such as schools, corporate offices and houses of worship, registrations for the show rose 38 percent from the previous year. This includes corporate security managers, hoteliers, government regulators and municipal law enforcement officials from around the world.

The show organizers clearly saw this change coming. Besides renaming the show—as of this year, it’s the International Security Expo–they set off a sizeable part of the show floor for the dozens of drone (and counter-drone!) security products on the market. The centerpiece exhibit was the football field-sized “Protecting Urban Spaces Demonstrator,” where visitors could get a sense of the user experience of various futuristic products in a simulated city, right down to a smart man-hole cover that looks out for wanted criminals while it also monitors the water and gas levels around it.

We definitely saw the broadening demographics of the security business at the Evolv booth. We had visits from multiple soccer clubs and other professional sports teams, all looking for ways to lower the odds of an attack in their stadium without taking any fun out of a night at the game. We spoke with police departments, who wanted to boost security at police stations and potentially at crime scenes. Large event planning companies kicked the tires, as well.

As a rule, these people had little interest in speeds and feeds, and most probably couldn’t tell you the meaning of the acronym AVSec (Answer: Aviation Security). They wanted to talk more about use cases, and how to create fluid, non-aggravating screening processes that wouldn’t feel like lining up in an airport security queue. Rather than create impenetrable perimeters to find every last pen-knife, many wanted the ability to quickly stand-up a “pop-up” checkpoint—say, for the night when a dignitary comes to a restaurant or if a municipal alert goes out about a violent criminal on the loose.

I suppose it’s no surprise that many of these newcomers to the show found their way to our booth. Evolv set out in 2013 to create solutions for the growing soft-target threat. More than 200 of our Evolv Edge® systems are already deployed, in everything from corporate headquarters to concert halls. We’re not the only company targeting these applications, but I’d have no problem betting that we have the most experience helping customers in real-world applications.

In terms of the amount of real business that got done at the show, it no doubt took place at the booths and suites of those aviation security companies. With the European Commission mandating a shift from traditional X-ray-based technology to systems based on CT-scanners, there’s a lot of money to be made or lost in that huge market.

But I took the stream of new faces at our booth and the show as a solid leading indicator of expanding demand for a new generation of security screening equipment. It’s an unfortunate statement on the level of violence in our society today that schools, businesses and sports teams need to think about the safety of their visitors. But it’s also a positive sign that these companies and institutions are thinking about responding rather than accepting it as the new normal.

Check out Six Ways to Prevent Soft Targets from Terrorist Attacks to learn more about options to combating today’s security threats.

Physical Security in 2019: What Can We Expect?

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With 2018 coming to close, Evolv is intently focused on the year ahead and how we can bring a truly unique product that keeps venues, events and people safe. This year alone we saw more than 300 mass shooting incidents that targeted venues across the United States. 2018 also brought the first publicly available downloads for printing 3-D weapons in the U.S.; in the first four days, more than 1,000 people downloaded plans for 3-D printed AR-15 rifles. Attacks with improvised explosive devices (IEDs) continued around the globe, with deadly threats occurring in Ghazni, Kabul and the Gercüş district of the Batman Province in Turkey. Security teams at commercial venues and transportation hubs continued to deploy technology to keep their facilities and people safe.

As we look to 2019, we see a number of developments in the physical security industry.

Increased use of multi-layered security plans

Organizations are using more layers of security as part of their overall security plan. This includes overt measures such as visible guards, police details, closed circuit tv (CCTV), turnstiles, bollards and personnel screening equipment, and less obvious measures such as increased use of intelligence, coordination with local, state and federal law enforcement, and social media analysis to identify local threats. The TSA has long used this multi-layer approach, which has influenced other organizations to follow suit. These plans will create layers of security that address and protect along four different capabilities: people, technology, intelligence, and process/protocols.

Technology as a force multiplier for guards

Security guards are the backbone of most physical security plans; however, it can get expensive as the guard force grows. Turnover among security guards is high and many new guards have a basic level of training and limited experience. Technology can be used to augment the guard force and provide them with tools that can increase their effectiveness. Instead of providing guards with more sophisticated training on how to operate equipment, there is a move to make equipment more ‘red light / green light’ to let guards know when they need to look more closely. Today, solutions also provide them with more specific, directive guidance to help them resolve an issue or alert that comes in. This augments guard capability and allows them to be more effective in what they do and more focused on areas of potential concern.

Value of deterrence more widely recognized

There are many examples where visible security served as a deterrence, shifting an attack to a different location. The Pulse Nightclub was Omar Mateen’s third stop that night, after there was a visible security presence at the previous two locations.  Countless security directors attest to the cache of knives found outside designated security checkpoints, and of people diverting before entering a screening point to lock their firearm elsewhere. Visible security and screening are effective both in the weapons they detect and in those that never coming through in the first place.

Increased reliance on third-party validation

With the infusion of innovation comes a surge of new devices, solutions, and systems. As more technologies and solutions are released onto the market, security teams will increasingly rely on third party validation as proof to identify which solutions are operationally sound. These third-party validations can come from industry peers or official designations such as the U.S. Department of Homeland SAFETY Act Designation and third-party testing organizations such as Safe Skies.

AI and biometrics go mainstream

Artificial intelligence (AI) seems to be all the rage. It shows up on product material, at trade shows and in your vendor’s sales pitches. We see the effective use of AI in specific products or solutions for specific industry applications. For example, using AI to review and learn from scores of medical radiology images to identify potentially cancerous anomalies that may be less visible to the human eye.  In 2019, vendors will find more practical applications for AI and deep learning models that add value.

Biometrics applications will also move into the mainstream and will expand beyond traditional applications. Not only will the application of biometrics expand beyond airports or highly secure facilities, it will also start to be used for non-security applications, such as customer service.  For example, the use of facial recognition technology to verify VIP guests at a sports stadium, ultimately improving the overall security screening experience for guests.

Interoperability to improve security effectiveness

As additional security layers are deployed, organizations are seeking to make them operate together as an integrated security infrastructure. This will allow the security team to quickly have a more complete picture of a security issue to execute its response. Additionally, it will allow more effective use of all equipment. For example, connecting security screening equipment with CCTV for monitoring and access control equipment will allow the team to see if a person of interest enters the facility, where they are, and if they are acting in a suspicious manner.

Increased blend of the cyber and physical security domains

The cyber and physical security domains are coming closer and closer together. In many organizations the responsibility to understand and mitigate these risks come under different groups. The Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) and Chief Security Officer (CSO) are now called on to work more closely together to keep the entire organization safe from a range of ever-changing threats.

Benefits of security technology expands beyond cost and risk mitigation

When it comes to physical security, one thing has become clear: there is a balance between a fully locked down, highly secure environment and an open and inviting space. Security directors and management teams are broadening how they look at the benefits of new security technologies and procedures by considering the impact on their physical space, visitor experience and overall mission. Traditionally, cost and risk mitigation have served as the primary factors when deciding which solutions to invest in, and while these are still paramount, we will start to see other factors driving decisions as organizations continue to deploy tailored approaches in 2019.

2018 was an important year for the physical security industry that demonstrated the significant role technology plays in addressing the evolving threat landscape. As we transition our thoughts to the year ahead, we will take the lessons we’ve learned and apply them as we continue to work towards creating solutions that keep people safe.

Read more from our Advisor, Mark Sullivan, former U.S. secret service director, on security screening in the 21st century.