Would you rely on a standard developed in the 1970s for gas-powered cars as the basis for operating a modern electric car? How about a 1970s standard for land lines to manage your smart phone? Seems pretty ridiculous to rely on decades-old standards to define, inform and keep up with today’s pace of innovation and the varied ways technology has shaped lives over the past 10 years, let alone the past 50. 

Yet, when it comes to our safety when we gather in groups in public places, the only “standards” our industry has available to measure the effectiveness of our security technology was developed in the 1970s for uses that just don’t apply in today’s world and for today’s threats. Not only that but these standards are also based on old analog technology—walk through metal detectors—that are even older than the standards themselves and are incapable of meeting today’s needs for modern weapons detection.  

So, you see why I put the word “standards” in quotation marks. In reality, there has never been a security and safety standard that was designed specifically to meet the needs of today’s modern venue—able to specifically and accurately detect weapons while delivering a free-flow, touchless and friction-free experience to visitors, employees, and other patrons. There weren’t many 80,000 seat stadiums in the early 1900s when metal detectors were first deployed. For decades, security professionals have been hindered by static, outdated technology as they try to react to a new threat environment in today’s dynamic world. 

Until now, of course.   

Today’s standard for physical safety and security must address an era in which soft targets, weapons proliferation, and a global pandemic have dramatically and permanently changed the security landscape. A modern solution must detect weapons, not just metal. It must go beyond security—meeting the concerns and expectations of visitors for a touchless, seamless experience, whether attending a sporting event, concert, mall, school, workplace, or any other places where people gather. 

Eight years ago, when we started Evolv, it was clear that the tools organizations were using for security and safety at their points of entry were obsolete at best, and dangerous at worst. Metal detectors were originally designed primarily for applications such as courts and prisons to prevent a small number of visitors from walking in with small contraband, such as razors or pocketknives.   

The standards developed in the 1970s were based on this old technology and established by the National Institute of Justice for courts and jails, and then adapted by the US FAA, Transportation Security Administration, and other regulators for aviation security. There were no cell phones in the ’70s, no proliferation of assault weapons, no steady drumbeat of gun-related violence.  

Relying on those standards and that technology just doesn’t meet today’s security needs. It forces people to queue in long lines, which creates another potential target for attackers. It forces them to hand their personal belongings to strangers, which is anathema to a safe and pleasant experience with COVID now a daily part of our lives. Worse, the standards are designed to detect metal, not weapons, which requires everyone to dump their pockets and virtually every bag to be searched. Because they weren’t willing to create a line around the block, many organizations avoided using metal detectors and just relied on a visible guard presence, handbag checks by security personnel or, often, no security at all.  

A new standard for detecting weapons at modern venues is needed and was one of the reasons we started Evolv. As I say perhaps far too often, some things have to be believed in order to be seen. We believed we could build a new system that could discriminate weapons from the innocuous everyday objects we all carry while allowing the free flow of people. We could see a new standard because we believed it could be built and, in fact, we could be the ones to build it. 

Evolv Express® is the culmination of years of hard work to develop what I consider to be “wicked smaht” (pronounced in a Boston accent) software, leveraging technology advances that would have seemed like science fiction back in the 1970s. These include advanced video analytics, machine learning, artificial intelligence, sensors, and more.  

It has taken us the better part of six years to perfect the technology. With the help of our early customers and our talented team, the Express is the product that fulfills the original vision we had for Evolv. Our system sets a new standard for physical security because it delivers what venues need, now and into the future, including: 

• Digital technology hardware and software systems that replace obsolete metal detectors with modern weapons detectors. 

• Free-flow, frictionless screening, with a touch-free experience for patrons in a post-COVID environment. 

• Simplified deployment, management, upgrades, and operations. 

• The opportunity for organizations and security leaders to improve security, increase safety, deliver a great user experience and significantly reduce security costs—all at the same time.  

The world is a very different place than it was in the 1970s when the existing “standards” for physical security were adopted. A new standard is needed to adapt to this new world and the current threat environment. We believe the Evolv Express is the next industry standard. Why? Because it fulfills our core mission of making the world safer.  

Helping Evolv become a public company has been an incredible, and humbling experience. Our customers, employees, advisors, and investors have been wonderfully unified behind our mission of making the world a safer place, and we are truly thankful for their support. Building momentum through an unpredictable pandemic has been a wild ride, but we’ve come through it stronger than ever. Now that our transformation into EVLV on the NASDAQ is complete, it’s a good time to look to the future. 

While becoming a public company is a noteworthy milestone for all our stakeholders, the stakeholders I am most focused on are the millions of innocent people rushing back into their favorite venues, unaware that they’re surrounded by concealed weapons. Compelling new data and the lived experiences of our customers have convinced me that the threat profile is spiking in ways that few people fully realize and even fewer are equipped to address. As security professionals, we need to start thinking differently about the threat and work together to address it. 

Take Me Out to The Ballgame, but Don’t Touch Me. 

After 16 months of pandemic anxiety, travel restrictions, lockdowns, social distancing, and masking, the vaccinated population is justifiably feeling entitled to return to all their favorite gathering places. Most people are emerging from the pandemic fog with excitement, but many still harbor significant anxiety about being in crowds or having physical contact with? strangers. The professionals who run facilities and venues are understandably thrilled to welcome back their visitors, but it must be done in a way that recognizes the long-lasting—and possibly permanent—changes in visitor expectations. Going back to densely crowded, hands-on security screening is not what anyone wants in the post-pandemic world. 

There are More Guns than You Think  

It’s no secret that there are a lot of guns out there, but many people don’t realize that they likely encounter multiple concealed guns every day without realizing it. Based on industry data, we estimate that there are over 440 million civilian-owned guns per person in the U.S. That’s around 1.3 guns for every person in the country. About 42% of U.S. households own at least one gun and few guns are kept exclusively at home. A quarter of Americans say they carry a gun at least sometimes and nearly a fifth, 18%, claim to carry every day. And no, it’s not just a red state thing: 28% of people in the Northeast say they carry a gun at least some of the time. 

Civilian Firearms in the United Statesbased on Evolv analysis of datafromSmall Arms Survey 2018andSmall ArmsAnalytics2018-2021.

Another fact that might surprise you is that the United States is not the only country where civilian-owned guns are common. According to Small Arms Survey research, there are 85 countries with 10 or more civilian-owned guns per 100 population. The list includes Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Australia, New Zealand, and many other countries you might not expect. There are almost half a billion civilian-owned guns outside the United States, and while mass public shootings may feel less common in other countries, the list of tragic incidents outside the U.S. is not short.

Map of civilian guns per 100 people by country from theSmall Arms Survey 2017.

Guns are in the Building 

Nearly every privately-owned facility and venue prohibits dangerous weapons, but the inconvenient truth is that many weapons slip through. How do I know this? Because most of our customers tell us that when they start using our Evolv Express® weapons detection screening, they find a shocking number of guns—far more than they expected and more than they ever found using procedures based on old technology such as metal detectors. I know of one facility in the U.S. that found 57 concealed guns in their first hour of testing Evolv Express at a single entrance. And no, it wasn’t a gun show or a law enforcement convention. It was a place where any average American family might find themselves on any given day of the week.  

The stark reality is that old metal detector screening procedures fail to catch a lot of guns. That’s not to say metal detectors don’t work—it’s the combined system of people, process, and technology that fails. Metal detectors alarm on so many harmless objects that security staff divert all bags and pocket contents into slow, error-prone manual searches. Working under the angry stares of hundreds of frustrated visitors, security staff are under incredible pressure to keep things moving. The guns slip through. 

A Fraying Society is a Dangerous Society 

The likelihood of tragic violence increases when more guns are in the hands of people who are unusually anxious or fearful. New gun purchases were up 64% last year in the United States. The CDC says 40% of U.S. adults reported recent battles with mental health or substance abuse during 2020, with the prevalence of anxiety up 3X and depression up 4X year on year. And ongoing political polarization and extremist ideologies are creating an increasingly volatile situation.  

More guns in more anxious hands means more tragic incidents. It’s just math, but that’s the reality of where we are as a society. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security summarized the situation in a 30 June law enforcement bulletin as follows: 

“In recent weeks, domestic violent extremists (DVEs) motivated by various violent ideologies have continued to advocate violence and plan attacks. As of 16 June, racially or ethnically motivated violent extremist-white supremacists (RMVE-WSs) were sharing downloadable links to a publication discussing targeting mass gatherings, critical infrastructure, and law enforcement officers.”

It’s not just a handful of extremists who are changing the threat landscape. While only a tiny minority of gun owners are infected with the extremist ideologies that the DHS is tracking, the fact remains that many of people around us every day are feeling threatened enough to arm themselves. This increases the risk of tragic escalations where misunderstandings and opportunistic conflict can quickly erupt into violence. 

The Duty of Care to Keep People Safe 

The police recently arrested a man who tried to enter a major tourist destination with an unlicensed gun that was detected by Evolv Express. When questioned, the man explained that he felt threatened by recent public protests and felt he needed the gun to protect his family on vacation, and was willing to take the risk of detection. That’s where we are. The strength of the “visible deterrent” factor is fading fast. Facilities and venues need to start reliably detecting and stopping guns, and then let the public know they have this capability. It’s the only way to reclaim the lost ground, and it needs to happen soon. 

If anxious gun owners are trying to slip into major tourist destinations with guns even when they know it is illegal and can clearly see security screening in place, it is safe to assume that they are also entering schools, grocery stores, malls, houses of worship, and other facilities where weapons are also prohibited, but screening is largely absent. The threat is everywhere.  

As noted earlier, our customers tell us they find a surprising number of weapons with Evolv Express. They also tell us they love that they find more guns while allowing harmless visitors to enter ten times faster than their old screening process based on metal detectors and universal bag checks. They tell us they need fewer front-line security staff overall with Evolv Express, and the remaining staff loves the new process. They also tell us they love the operational awareness they get from Express Insights™ analytics. We hear this same story across hundreds of sites as we scan over 11 million individual visitors every month.  

At this point, I believe it has become abundantly clear that Evolv Express has set a new and higher standard for what security screening should be.  I believe every facility and venue owner has a duty of care to carefully consider the new standard that our weapons detection system represents in light of the escalating threats we’re seeing. We are committed to democratizing access to this technology over time so it can be everywhere it needs to be to keep the vulnerable masses safe.  

If you want to be part of raising the standard of safety for millions of people, we’d love to have your support. Here are a few ideas on how you can help. If you are responsible for security at a facility or venue, please get in touch so we can discuss your needs. Consider speaking with the security staff at the places you gather most often and ask them if they have considered weapons detection. If you’ve experienced the speed and precision of Evolv Express in person, help us tell the world about it. And if you are looking to get more directly involved, note that we’re hiring in almost every department. Together we can all do a little to make everywhere safer.  

What if we lived in a world where we could work, learn and play together without the fear of weapons violence? This is what our founders Mike Ellenbogen, Co-Founder and Head of Technology, and Anil Chitkara, Co-Founder and Head of Corporate Development have set out to do. All of us at Evolv Technology share that same mission; transform security to enhance everyone’s life. This is our duty-of-care and we hold ourselves accountable to it. 

As of today, six months into 2021, there have been 319 mass shootings, compared to 417 in all of 2019 (according to www.gunviolencearchive.org). The old standards for security aren’t keeping up with the security requirements of today. Many institutions that have used metal detectors for security realize they can no longer keep large numbers of people queuing in security lines. Aside from the potential health hazard lines create, this opens up an additional security vulnerability. Venues and enterprises that have never used security screening are now budgeting to keep their visitors safe. Traditional metal detector technology just cannot address the pace of life and the ubiquitous need for security in our daily lives.

We need new standards. We need security that continually improves – touchless, free-flowing, and frictionless technology – supported by a strong concept of operations and enforced by well-trained security personnel. The days of bag checks, wands, and body checks are unacceptable and biased. We must find the weapons, not the metal. Advanced sensors and artificial intelligence are at the forefront of this evolution. This is where we come in.

We are obsessed with our customers’ success and strive to do better and be better for them. That requires authenticity and real products that work. At Evolv we do what we say and say what we do. There is no room for bravado. 

Evolv innovations are fueling the physical security transformation, disrupting the status quo. Evolv Express®, powered by Evolv Cortex AI™, can distinguish between metals that are personal items from weapons used for harm. No longer do visitors, fans, employees, and students need to stand in long lines to slog through metal detectors. They can move at the pace of life through our weapons detection systems, eliminating the potential soft targets long lines create to seamlessly flow through security. Life shouldn’t feel like airport security.

New standards call for a new brand. We’re calling it Safety in Motion. The modernized look is representative of our technological innovations in security screening, using cutting-edge technology for today’s security needs. Moreover, we wanted our new brand to reflect our mission: Transform security to enhance everyone’s life. We think it does, we hope you do too.

Evolv Earns Edison Award for Completely Reinventing Threat Detection

Last week I had the distinct honor of accepting, on behalf of everyone at Evolv Technology, the Edison Award we won last year for the “game-changing innovation” that our Evolv Express® system and Evolv Cortex AI™ software platform represent. We got word of the award last spring, but there was no public event at which to actually receive it – so while I participated in this year’s ceremony from afar, it was gratifying to virtually bring the award home.

That’s because the Edison Award is one you want to display proudly for all to see. It’s one of the few awards that truly recognizes significant technical innovation in products that solve actual problems in the real world, as opposed to in a lab. And herein lies our story.

As the original announcement said, the award goes to companies that are “changing the world with their incredible vision, their commitment to innovation, and the introduction of new products and services that will make consumers’ lives safer, healthier and more sustainable.” 

Our second-generation product, Evolv Express, for which we earned this award, is a game-changing weapons detection system. With its’ ability to scan up to 3,600 people an hour and the intelligence to differentiate between weapons and personal items – without forcing people to empty pockets and bags or break stride – it’s improving security at the speed and scale required in this post-pandemic world. 

Evolv Technology is leading the digital transformation of physical security, one that is touchless and addresses today’s threat of pandemic viruses as well as concealed weapons. By harnessing our technical innovations in sensors and AI to overcome the widely recognized deficiencies of outdated security screening products, Evolv’s technology enables ticketed venues, workplaces and schools to vastly improve their ability to keep their customers, employees, guests, students and staff safe all while rapidly and more naturally enter these venues.  And, it’s all done in a way that integrates with the way people want to live, and more importantly, the way they deserve to live.

Edison, Bell and Early Metal Detectors

The Edison Award, of course, is named after Thomas Edison, one of the greatest inventors of all time, and holder of some 1,093 U.S. patents. Evolv Express is an entirely new approach to metal detection technology first created by another renowned inventor and Edison contemporary, Alexander Graham Bell.

While Bell is best known as the inventor of the telephone, he was also experimenting with a metal detection device around the time in 1881 when President James Garfield was shot by a disgruntled diplomat. The bullet was lodged in the president’s chest and for weeks physicians attempted to find and extract the bullet.

Bell had successfully used his device to detect bullets in sides of beef and shrapnel in Civil War veterans, so he thought it may be of use in Garfield’s case. But the device failed for a simple reason: unbeknownst to Bell at the time, underneath the horse-hair mattress on which the president was lying was another made of steel wires. Those wires interfered with Bell’s metal detector, which was based on electrical inductors, rendering him unable to find the bullet. In other words, the technology couldn’t separate the signal from the noise – we’ll come back to this technical challenge. 

By the 1920s, metal detectors using radio frequency (RF) waves began to come on the scene. While they have been refined over time, the metal detectors we all pass through today are based on that same 100-year-old technology.  

Interference: An Age-old Issue

And that technology still suffers from the same challenges that rendered Bell’s detector unable to help President Garfield….interference. As we all know, anytime you pass through a metal detector, you are asked to empty your pockets and remove any metal – keys, phones, wallets and so on, and pass through in single file. In effect, all those personal items are interfering with the detector’s ability to detect the real threat: weapons. Legacy technology and an outdated approach certainly don’t integrate with the way people live today.

Necessity is the Mother of Invention

In 2013, after the Sandy Hook school shooting and Boston Marathon bombing and amid terrorists shifting targets to nightclubs and stadiums around the globe, we founded Evolv with the singular goal of keeping people safe by finding a way to detect weapons at places that aren’t mandated to do so – like nightclubs, schools, workplaces, sports and concert venues.

These kinds of venues, companies and schools need security that does not disrupt the public gathering experience and avoids the problems that come with traditional security approaches such as crowds, single-file lines, bag checks, wands and invasive pat downs.

We knew there was a hurdle to get over. If the detection device presents too much hassle and creates lines, people won’t embrace it.  It needed to be seamless, accurate and fit within venue operations.  It had to balance the desire to improve safety with the need to maintain or even improve the visitor entrance experience.

Evolv has a Singular Goal

Starting out with a small team of colleagues who are world-class in understanding detection challenges, we had the idea to combine state-of-the-art sensors with smart software and machine learning algorithms to solve this problem. After refinement and iteration, we’ve delivered on our goal: detection technology that is all at once accurate and frictionless. And can perform reliably under real world conditions.

Now, About that Signal to Noise Problem

When I say accurate, I mean we can reliably differentiate a weapon from a phone and the other objects we all carry on a daily basis, and we’ve accounted for variables such as wind and vibration that may throw off other forms of RF-based sensors. And by frictionless, I mean you no longer have to empty pockets, go through screening single-file, or even slow down your normal walking speed.

Security Can Only be Effective if it Works in the Real World

Innovation in our space has to address often competing requirements: balance the physics of detection, address the realities of the all the stuff we carry, and support the operational needs of the customer.  And it has to satisfy all three in a way that achieves high throughput, quickly and more securely.

That, I would argue – and the Edison Award folks apparently agree – is game-changing technology. And it certainly helps to make us all safer.

So, I proudly accepted the Edison Award last week on behalf of all the smart, dedicated people on the Evolv team who helped develop this technology, refine it in the lab, and bring it out into the field, where it can solve real-world problems. I hope both Edison and Bell would be impressed.

In 2006, Clive Humby, a British mathematician and entrepreneur in the field of data science, declared “Data is the new oil.” This compelling position has been amplified thru the years and referenced in numerous settings for various intents, particularly with the advent of machine learning and AI. While the comparison may often create interesting debate material, what is generally recognized is the finite supply of oil versus the infinite waterfall of data.

Until now, physical security screening and rich front door visitor entry data has been an untapped resource. With legacy screening systems, visitors pass through a security checkpoint as a single, moment-in-time transaction, and because legacy systems are analog, digital data escapes uncaptured in the wind—

Moving from analog to digital, Evolv has transformed physical security screening using state-of-the-art sensors and AI-based software. Our systems constantly capture valuable data at this “threshold real estate” which can be mined, analyzed and used for optimizing operational efficiency.

The refinery

Screening and entry data while plentiful is just a raw resource. From our “Data is the new oil” reference, it needs to be processed and refined to derive value. Analytics helps harness the data and extract value to improve your security posture, optimize your resources (both security, general venue operations, and front of house), and ultimately create delighted customers. 

The premise that using data and analytics to optimize operational efficiency is not a quantum physics or atom splitting concept. There’s nothing new here except it’s never been applied in the physical security screening space. In fact, some say that physical security screening is the land that digital transformation forgot. Evolv Technology just unveiled an important enhancement to our Evolv Express® digital, touchless screening system, one that gives companies access to a “refined” repository of data, self-serve analytics, and dashboard tools to improve decision-making across a variety of organization functions. Introducing Evolv Insights™our powerful, SaaS-based analytics application.

By leveraging the rich data from Express and its machine learning and AI engine, Evolv Insights™ provides security and operations professionals with a single, easy-to-use, self-service dashboard to view, review, analyze and gather insights, from their screening and venue entrance. Example data types are granular 5-minute visitor arrival curves, total venue visitor counts, system detection performance, identified threat category counts and comparisons across multiple business dimensions including sites, entrance doors, event types, system detection settings, time periods and more. 

And this is just the beginning. Future integrations of additional Express sensor data, 3 party data sources, social feeds like weather, and rich venue enterprise data will expand our ability to provide more predictive and prescriptive venue relevant insights.

Data and actionable insights to optimize operations

Until now, security teams have been forced to make operational decisions based on biased judgement and anecdotal inputs, collected manually under the pressure of time. With automated data collection and actionable insights, security teams move from reactive management and intuition-led decision making, to proactive, data-informed readiness. Resulting actionable insights will empower security teams to transform security, operations, and the holistic visitor experience.

• Simply Report on Security Performance to Leadership – Quickly review aggregated performance across the install base. This “snapshot” provides unique situational awareness and enables a holistic view of customers’ Express systems to optimize performance. This view is especially helpful when showcasing system performance to leadership teams.

• Data-driven Improvements to Security Posture – Access individual scanner, location and detection setting comparisons. Drilling down and comparing system performance related to clear rate, visitor counts, arrival curves, and more, enables root cause analysis and inspection by event types, venue locations, individual entrances, and singular scanners.

• Partner with Operations Teams to Deliver a Better Visitor Experience – Review the density of visitor arrivals with a color-coded heat map and correlated time-series view. Anticipated patron arrivals across seasons, weeks, days, and specific hourly trends by entrance and event type is available. Understanding these load times helps to more effectively plan staffing to provide visitors and employees with a welcoming, line-free experience.

Security seat at the table and value center

The ability for security professionals to advance a “data beats opinion stance” and to provide actionable recommendations across the enterprise will elevate the interaction and effectiveness across functions. Security equipment and leaders will no longer be viewed as a “necessary evil”, but as a coordinated and integral part of overall venue success.

If data is the new oil, analytics is the new refinery!