Tag: Large Event

Five Factors to Improve Today’s Physical Security Screening Experience

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Security screening technology is often measured by three factors – detection, alarm rates and throughput. At the macro level, these three metrics give a broad sense of whether or not a device will improve an overall security process. However, these three pieces don’t tell the whole story. Two other factors, closely tied to throughput, flesh out the overall security trade space. They are “touch rate” and “divestiture.”

  • The traditional factors – detection, alarm rates and throughput.
  • The five “must consider” factors – detection, alarm rates and throughput, along with touch rate and divestiture.

Only when the entire set of factors is considered as a whole, can the effectiveness and efficiency of the device be evaluated. In today’s world where physical security screening has become the “norm” in more and more of the places we gather, the latter two factors become increasingly important — to find a purpose-built device and the right process.

The age-old adage “there are two sides to every coin” speaks volumes. While “throughput” is important to security operators, it’s the combination of throughput, touch rate, and divestiture that matters to your customer.

With this is mind, when the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Transportation Security Administration (TSA) created the TSA Precheck Program, the focus was specifically on two things beyond detection: 1) touching people less and 2) letting them leave everyday items on or in their pockets and in bags. While “throughput” wasn’t the central tenant of the program, it was believed that doing the first two things for a growing population of travelers would ultimately speed up throughput for all travelers.

When the program was created its authors wondered whether these two things would be material enough to make a difference in the physical screening experience. More than half a decade later, there is a clear differentiation between the highly customer-focused TSA Precheck practice and “regular” screening, underscoring the point that customers place high value on an improved experience.

Customer experience matters.

Not all customer environments will be the same; each will have slightly different objectives. Some will be in high threat locations; others will not. Regardless of the customer or their venue, the following things will always ring true. First, your physical screening system must detect threats at a high level and with limited alarms. Second, your physical screening system must do this in a way that keeps people moving, minimizes physical touching and allows them to walk at their pace without losing control of their belongings. Finally, in a world of limited or shrinking budgets, your system must be able to deliver efficiencies – either in terms of hard budget savings or repurposed security resources.

If you’re reading this blog, it’s possible that you’re implementing a comprehensive security screening solution for the first time. Or, perhaps, you’ve already implemented something in response to growing threats over the past decade. In either case, I encourage you not to start at square one. Why not learn from the organization that has been the face of post 9-11 security for almost two decades? Certainly, the TSA has made mistakes. And, thankfully, they have also made significant advances. You can learn from both, and you don’t have to spend a decade to do it.

Consider the five factors discussed above and evaluate your overall security process through a customer lens. Is the technology in your current process, or the one you are considering, purpose built to meet today’s security concerns while also preserving the culture, look, and feel of your venue? If it isn’t, you have options. There will always be two sides to this coin, but there are ways to ensure that both shine for decades to come. Contact us to find out how.

Note: To underscore the importance of the customer experience, I highlighted the tangible changes to TSA Precheck screening. It’s important to acknowledge the foundation of the program is built on the concepts of trust and access, and the public’s willingness to share personal information for the benefit of this streamlined screening experience.

Shining a Spotlight on Better Event Security

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Mass shootings like the one that occurred this past weekend at The Jacksonville Landing entertainment complex and last year at the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival in Las Vegas shake us to our core. They make us feel vulnerable in moments when we should instead feel excited. Large performance spaces have been cultural cornerstones for thousands of years because they uniquely bring together people regardless of race, creed or gender over a shared love for the arts. Attacks like these exploit one of the most powerful uniting forces in our society.

The challenge for security professionals is that these venues take a number of different forms. For example, in the Boston area you could see Moulin Rouge at the Emerson Colonial theatre, the Eagles at TD Garden arena and Cirque du Soleil’s LUZIA under a big top at the grounds of Suffolk Downs – all within the same month. As adversaries shift their focus to public places and become increasingly innovative in their strategies, we need a new approach to venue security.

A New Focus for Attackers

Since adversaries have moved on from hard targets such as airplanes, government facilities and military bases, there has been a significant shift to soft targets such as performing arts centers, sporting venues and arenas. While this is widely known – our CEO tells the story often of the anxious conversations he recently witnessed fellow parents having as he picked up his son’s friends to take them to an Imagine Dragons concert at a stadium – not enough is being done to address this new focus of keeping loved ones safe.

Further, the attack method and the perpetrator have changed. The rise of crowd-sourced terrorism has led to readily accessible means for an attack. Firearms, vehicles and home-made explosives are within reach as adversaries shift their focus from high-profile locations to anywhere people gather.

Raising the Current on New Security Technology

While attackers have focused in on specific venues, security screening technology has been largely unchanged. Today when you go to a see a show at a theatre, you’ll likely wait in line for sometimes 30-45 minutes before approaching a metal detector for which you have to empty your pockets or divest personal items before walking through. Many stadium and arena operators no longer even allow visitors to bring backpacks or other bags into their venues to improve the efficiency of screening.

Advancements in technology are changing this status quo, providing higher throughput and improved threat detection with less disruption. Some combine personnel and bag screening to help minimize removal of personal items and speed up the process. These technologies are using the latest sensors, software and user experience design principles to provide an improved level of security with a better visitor experience.

While technology is an important component to an effective security plan for a performing arts center, it’s just one piece of the puzzle. When building a security plan, facility managers should work to understand their threat vectors, vulnerabilities, and mitigation plans. They should incorporate the following components into a comprehensive security plan.

  • Intelligence: Understand and identify the threats to the area, building, and people in it. Work with various federal, state, and local enforcement agencies and leverage the facility team’s network of contacts. Threats are constantly changing; therefore, intelligence must be ongoing.
  • People and Training: Guards and officers serve as the frontline, they know the facility and the people in it. They should be trained on an ongoing basis in security protocols as well as identifying suspicious behavior.
  • Processes and Protocols: Facility managers can no longer use a “one-size-fits-all” approach to security. They need tailored systems and well thought out processes and protocols – like risk-based security – to ensure security layers are properly deployed throughout a venue.
  • Technology: As mentioned above, new technologies can provide threat prevention beyond the capabilities of guards to significantly improve screening operations. CCTV and access control expand the reach of the team on the ground. Further, facial recognition technology can be employed to recognize and authorize employees in an employee screening application or to adjust screening for VIPs.
  • Visitor Experience: With new technology and processes, it’s important that customer experience is not a secondary consideration – especially at a performing arts center. A security experience can maintain a level of calm and unobtrusiveness.

By employing a holistic approach, security guards and facility managers at performing arts centers can be armed with the information they need to quickly and confidently assure a safe environment for their visitors. With the right technology, they can effectively screen and adjust layers of security in response to changing threat levels without impacting visitors and their normal pace of life. In fact, when selecting new technologies, facility managers should look for solutions that provide a balance between improved security and a better visitor experience.

While related issues like the gun control debate may divide us, cultural experiences like seeing a show or going to a concert unite us. We can all agree that we deserve to feel safe in all the places we gather. At Evolv, we will continue to innovate to bring intelligence and security at the perimeter of soft targets to keep people safe – at performing arts centers and beyond.

Read more here about safeguarding against soft target attacks.

Whitepaper: Balancing Security, Visitor Experience, Operational Efficiency and Cost Considerations

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Summary

All security systems are designed to keep people safe. The challenge is balance. Does the security present an undue burden, either to the provider or to the customer, does it evoke a sense of safety, and does it operate within the cultural bounds of the venue? And of course, how much does it cost? Security experts generally agree the use of a venue specific risk-based security (RBS) approach is preferable to “one-size fits all” solutions. Flexibility and adaptability are key factors in RBS solutions, allowing “tailored” systems designed to mitigate risk while maximizing customer movement or throughput with minimal disruption.

Evolv Edge was designed and built to aid an organization’s move toward a risk-based security approach and provide balanced detection across a range of threats in a changing environment.

Download this whitepaper to learn how Evolv Technology’s Edge system provides the best RBS solution to detect metallic and non-metallic threats that cause mass casualties.

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Fill out the form to download this whitepaper to learn about balancing security, visitor experience, operational efficiency, and cost considerations

Why the Rio Olympic Security team faces the most complex threat set ever

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The narrative leading up to the Rio Olympics to date has been troubling. From Zika to corruption, safety and security have now emerged as one of most concerning areas. The same games that are meant to celebrate the world, united by Olympism are happening at a time when mass casualty attacks like those in Brussels, Orlando, and Nice are becoming the new normal. We refuse to accept that and wanted to share some thoughts on the unique challenges we see for the dedicated security team committed to protecting the athletes, volunteers and fans who will spend the next fourteen days in Brazil.

How difficult is it to keep 600,000 people safe over 19 days?
These 2016 Summer Olympics will be secured by 85,000 personnel protecting 10,500 athletes, 70,000 volunteers and about 500,000 fans watching 306 events over 19 days across 32 different venues in four different geographic areas with football matches in five additional cities. These people will enter an array of venues from large stadiums to small arenas, outdoor ranges, beaches and the open water. This is where the challenge begins.

So how can you efficiently and effectively screen this volume of people coming in and out of the games?
Let’s use the largest single location to illustrate the security challenge.

Rio Olympic Stadium

The Barra Olympic Park (picture above) spans almost 300 acres, and is home to nine stadium venues hosting thirteen different sports, with an aggregate capacity of 95,000 fans.

On the fifth day of competition at Barra, 329,000 fans will attend 21 different events starting at 8:30am and ending after midnight. This is the equivalent of having sold out games at Fenway Park (Red Sox), TD Garden (Bruins/Celtics), Citi Field (Mets), Yankee Stadium, Madison Square Garden (Rangers/Knicks) and Met Life Stadium (Jets/Giants) on one consolidated campus, all in the same day.

Fans, athletes, volunteers and employees will be coming and going all day long. They will be arriving on buses, via subway, private vehicles, by bicycle and on foot. The Barra Olympic Park peninsula borders water on two sides and a very busy traffic area on the third. This is one tough perimeter to secure. Checkpoints will be set up around the perimeter to screen people and their bags. Given the volume of people throughout the day and the breadth of belongings they will have with them, this poses an enormous security challenge for any guard force. Add visitors speaking many different languages who may be new to Olympic-style security screening and the lines are likely to be very slow. One more variable: people will be bringing all sorts of personal items that local guards have not experienced before in their training. Imagine their thinking is this a threat or not? Is this on the prohibited list?

Let’s consider the security challenge faced by the Rio Olympics security organization. First and foremost, these games are once in a lifetime for Brazil (and is the case for many Olympic hosts). Therefore, there is no ‘permanent’ security force that secures all of those venues with those crowds on a regular basis. Second, looking for ‘abnormal behavior’ in a sea of chaos is virtually impossible. Thousands of people from hundreds of countries, moving around day and night over nearly three weeks creates a constantly changing environment. There is nothing normal about it that can provide a baseline for security personnel to assess unusual behavior against. Techniques to gather intelligence, identify suspicious behavior, and employ counter surveillance strategies are exponentially more complex.

In addition to its athletes, each nation brings trainers, coaches and other support staff. Is it time to think about each nation contributing large numbers of security personnel to the games? Should we have a transnational security organization that moves from one international sporting event to the next? Or can we use technology to reduce the complexity and be a force multiplier?

Given today’s threat landscape and the complexity of the modern Olympics, do we need to fundamentally rethink how we secure the games?

The world is full of soft targets and we’re defining a new approach to protecting them

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We are focused on the mission of keeping people safe. Here’s a quick look at how we see our challenge, our opportunity and our vision for the future of screening at soft targets around the globe.

A dynamic adversary

Another mass casualty event at yet another soft target. Riyadh, Bangladesh, Istanbul, Orlando, Brussels, Paris and San Bernardino.

Questions emerge: Were the terrorists lone wolves or known wolves? Were they inspired or directed? How can we improve protection? Should we push the perimeter out? Are we creating new soft targets with new checkpoints?.

We’ve spent the past three years talking with hundreds of professionals about securing their people and their facilities from active shooters and suicide bombers. These professionals provide protection to stadiums, transportation hubs, subways and rail, office buildings, special events, hotels and entertainment venues, military facilities, critical infrastructure such as chemical and nuclear facilities, and landmarks. They do this in the U.S., Canada, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. The needs may differ among them, but their mission is the same: keep their people and places safe.

Defining a new approach

We have accumulated, synthesized and prioritized the needs of this global group of security professionals to define an entirely new approach to physical security. We have researched, evaluated, built and tested a wide range of sensors, software, and analytical approaches to detect the physical security threat. We have studied and analyzed the operational realities of keeping soft targets safe. We’ve looked outside the physical security industry for innovative approaches and technologies to bring to bear on the physical security mission.

Enter Evolv

One thing is crystal clear: We need to provide better security without disrupting people’s everyday pace of life.

This should be accomplished with the latest sensors, software, and analytics, combined to provide a seamless screening experience, letting the public easily pass through while trapping those intending to do us harm. Our product is emerging from development, none too soon to help protect the next set of soft targets.

Our Products

The most effective security processes incorporate means to adjust sensitivity based on risk level. Our products enable risk-based adjustment as a core capability built into the technology. These adjustments can be made for a specific individual, location or time of day. Settings allow for different detection sensitivity and threat sets, based on intelligence, site-specific factors or a randomness protocol.

Our technology is designed to enhance the look of your location, not detract from it. Products are easily deployed at access points, lobbies, and entrance ways with little to no infrastructure modifications. Our design approach is to minimize the impact on your location by carefully designing the product and the ways it can be used.

Randomness is an important component in an effective security protocol to counter surveillance activities or to disrupt planned operations. Our screening products can be rapidly relocated and set-up to enable unpredictable screening at different locations throughout your facility.

Today’s security environment demands multiple layers, both visible and discreet. Results are typically fused at a command center, providing a more complete picture of the security situation. Our products improve situational awareness by inserting real-time multi-sensor data into the overall picture. In addition to providing screening results at the unit and to the command center, real-time information can be served to mobile security officers or others connected to the operation.

– Real-time video surveillance
– Facial recognition and known wolf matching
– Firearm and explosive detection

We have designed our products from the ground up to detect and prevent threats that can cause mass causalities. From sensors to software to networking, they are focused on keeping your people safe while allowing free flow and movement. We use a combination of sensors, built on active millimeter wave, that inform automated detection algorithms to provide a fully automated ‘red light’ or ‘green light’ decision. Detection settings can be adjusted based on the latest threat level. Evolv products are designed for high detection rates with minimal false alarms, to focus on the threats and minimize the impact on your visitors.