As the world reopens, physical security is top of mind for venue leadership and visitors alike. Venue security relies on a combination of people, processes, and technologies to prevent harmful weapons from entering. Different venues take different approaches to creating, maintaining, and improving security screening based on the unique needs of the organization and its visitors.  

But every venue has a common challenge: ensure a welcoming guest experience while preventing potential weapons threats from entering. To help address this need in the many ways venues implement security, Evolv recently launched its latest software update for Evolv Express®, Version 3.0. This version introduces new capabilities to advance threat detection, enhance existing venue security response time and protocols with integrated communications, and improve usability and mobility with an intuitive user experience and a wireless tablet option.  

Changing the Status Quo 

Balancing guest experience with the mandate to keep everyone safe is critical when making decisions about security personnel, processes, and technologies. While metal detectors are extremely good at alarming on any object that could be a threat, their user experience is less than ideal. They require people to separate from their bags and personal items, which result in repeat scans, and creates long lines. And in this post-pandemic era, requiring guards to handle personal items, or even wand and pat-down guests, can result in potentially unsafe personal contact. Certainly not the personal experience we all seek. 

In short, manually assessing everyone entering a venue is a burden on everyone involved, aggravating the very people that venues are trying to welcome in. Worse still, it creates new threats. Beyond just the health concerns of crowded lines and close personal contact, guards can become fatigued with manual checks due to so many false-positive alarms, putting them at higher risk of letting potential threats through. And long, tedious lines in unsecured areas create crowds that could become a soft target themselves: exacerbating the very threat conditions that venues are trying to avoid.  

Better Detection Improves Safety 

Balancing venue security with guest experience should never be a compromise. Evolv Express accelerates the way guests move through security checkpoints by leveraging advanced sensors, artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms, and camera technology to detect and visually pinpoint a potential weapon on a person’s body or baggage. It allows visitors to flow seamlessly into a venue at a normal walking pace while focusing guards’ efforts on quickly and efficiently resolving potential threats.  

The Evolv Express technology continuously improves with new releases, and the 3.0 release introduces yet another update to the detection algorithm. This update helps to refine false positive rates (“nuisance alarms”) without compromising the system’s ability to detect even the smallest weapons. 

Security Ecosystem Integrations Shorten Response Time 

Evolv Express is designed to integrate seamlessly with other venue technologies to ensure security teams are supported in their work using processes and protocols already in place. Unlike analog machines and manual methods, Evolv Express is designed to extend a venue’s security eyes and ears to the entryways with features like front-and-rear-facing cameras with available integrations into an existing Security Operations Center (SOC) or Video Management System (VMS).  

To these existing integration capabilities, Evolv Express Version 3.0 adds the newly-released “Request Assistance” feature. When a guard at an Evolv Express system needs to reach out across the existing extended security ecosystem—whether it’s for help from other team members, supervisors, or adjacent teams like law enforcement—Request Assistance adds a one-touch feature on the Evolv Express tablet that leverages your existing security processes and systems to send communications discreetly and instantaneously via SMS text or email. It automatically includes the location of the system requesting assistance, along with the option for a customized message from the team member in need.  

Request Assistance is easily configured in the MyEvolv portal by a system administrator to ensure that personnel staffing critical positions at a venue will be able to leverage existing security protocols for critical communications to get the help they need and better secure entryways, and guests, quickly.  

Usability Accelerates Threat Resolution 

Each Evolv Express tablet provides a targeted search capability when a potential threat is detected via an indicator on an image of the alerting individual, which shows the location of the threat from different vantage points and allows for the detection of multiple threats on the person or their baggage as they walk through the system. This visual alert only targets individuals with potential threats on their person—not everybody walking through—to streamline the work of your security personnel, allowing them to focus their efforts only on addressing and resolving potential threats.  

Visual alerts are delivered via a tablet user experience, and Evolv Express 3.0 introduces wireless tablets to add new options for system setup and ease of deployment. Wireless tablets create easier set-up and tear-down, increasing system mobility while improving the visual profile of the entryway. They also add new options for the physical configuration of systems, with easy ways to pair additional tablets when needed as visitor flow rates increase. Plus, an updated user experience on wired and wireless tablets for Evolv Express 3.0 modernizes the look-and-feel of the interface.  

Advancing Security with Each New Release 

In addition to continual improvements to threat detection, new integrations with adjacent security technologies, and an enhanced user experience, Evolv Express includes access to the web-based MyEvolv portal and Evolv Insights™ analytics. Insights automatically collects and surfaces metrics related to visitor arrival curves and alarm rates by location, date, and time all in one unified dashboard. By leveraging analytics to improve planning—along with new advancements in threat detection, integrated communications, and usability in Evolv Express 3.0— venues can transform the way they protect visitors from potential security threats.

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.