September 25, 2026
image
Home Archive by category Vertical Solutions (Page 14)

Vertical Solutions

Businesses are using faces to gain security and business insights

Smartphones and social media all utilize facial recognition, and user acceptance has paved the way for more varied uses. While the technology is still mostly associated with security, government and law enforcement, businesses are taking advantage of it as well for both security and business intelligence purposes.

The overall global facial recognition market is growing, expected to reach nearly US$7.8 billion by 2022 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 13.9 percent, according to a report by MarketsandMarkets. The report cites the growing need for surveillance in public spaces as a major contributor to growth.

The unique capabilities of advanced facial recognition can be applied to almost any vertical. Also, since the technology requires no physical contact or credentials that can be lost, stolen or replicated, it is an attractive solution for many different applications. Add in the insights businesses can gain from its ability to easily identify and track individuals — which could provide them with valuable data to perform advanced trend analysis, productivity research workflow processing and so much more — it is no wonder more and more businesses are deploying facial recognition solutions.

Making Businesses More Efficient With Facial Recognition

Businesses are deploying facial recognition technology to increase operational efficiency and learn more about customers.

Nowadays everyone is using facial recognition and businesses are no exception. The use of facial analytics solutions to gather information on demographics and consumer buying patterns is expected to grow significantly in the coming years, according to a report by MarketsandMarkets. Adoption of face recognition technology is growing across industries, which is being fueled by growing awareness, advancements in the technology, and accessibility. For instance, the development of advanced facial recognition analytics that are centralized has made it relatively easy to apply to any networked camera, explained Shawn Mather, Director of Sales for the U.S. at Intelligent Security Systems (ISS).

With businesses also looking for more ways to utilize smart technologies, and with artificial intelligence (AI) and deep learning gaining momentum, the use cases for facial recognition have opened up. Additionally, improvements in video surveillance cameras have allowed “organizations to realize the full value of video surveillance investments,” according to Stephanie Weagle, CMO of BriefCam.

“The growing sophistication of video content analytics (VCA) systems combined with the market’s fuller understanding of the ways in which video analytics solutions can drive organiza- tional efficiency and performance alongside security, has resulted in businesses of all types taking a deeper interest in VCA and face recognition,” Weagle said. From a retail perspective, leveraging facial recognition technology allows them to better understand customer demographics (e.g., gender, age, etc.). This data provides the retailer with a better understanding of who their customers are, which could enable them to better personalize the shopping experience and tailor their marketing strategy.

“When companies educate themselves on demographic composition, they create business intelligence opportu- nities to improve convenience in how people interact with their built environ- ments and to enhance the personal- ization of experiences in advertising,” explained Dan Grimm, VP of Computer Vision and GM of SAFR at RealNetworks. Grimm explained that companies can use facial detection and charac- terization, which does not retain any biometric information, to gain actionable insights of their customers. “For example, shopping mall owners will be able to make better advertising, leasing and customer service decisions if they know that between the hours of 12 p.m. and 1 p.m. they tend to see traffic of X number of persons broken down by 60 percent female, 40 percent male, with an average age of 42, based on a single IP camera properly tuned for an entrance,” he added.

Businesses are also using facial recognition to create customer loyalty programs to help identify VIPs.

Mather also highlighted the use of facial recognition in workforce management. This is a trend he sees on the rise globally. The ability to accurately identify and track personnel for time and attendance management with facial recognition is especially being sought after. Facial recognition is being deployed for this purpose in a large number of industries where large, but often temporary workforces are being deployed to either permanent or temporary sites, he said. “Perfect examples are factories and construction sites, where shifts change based on delivery schedules and production lines, and different groups of specialized workers need to be on production lines at different intervals,” Mather explained. These are just some of the ways businesses are using facial recognition technology for nonsecurity purposes today. In the near future, many expect facial recognition to become more mainstream where its use for even more business intelligence operations will continue to grow.

How Businesses Use Facial Recognition to Enhance Security

Facial recognition is helping businesses stop thefts and keep environments more secure.

More and more businesses are using facial recognition technology to improve situational awareness. Doing so gives businesses a smarter, easier way to monitor who is entering, staying and leaving their environment, while also increasing safety, security and convenience. Doug Aley, CEO of Ever AI, noted that “mission-critical” applications form about 75 percent of the facial recognition market. This includes use cases such as security surveillance, access control, digital authentication and government and law enforcement applications. According to a report by MarketsandMarkets, the increased need for enhanced surveil- lance and monitoring at public places and the increased use of the technology in industries such as the government are driving the market growth. While the main purpose of deploying a facial recognition solution is security, it is also about “empowering individuals to use their faces as a token to gain fast safe access and authen- tication,” said Dan Grimm, VP of Computer Vision and GM of SAFR at RealNetworks.

Facial recognition is “ideal” for environments that need to positively identify individuals for physical and data security clearance, general access permis- sions, compliance with mandated regulations, and financial verification, according to Shawn Mather, Director of Sales for the U.S. at Intelligent Security Systems (ISS).

In a business environment, such as retail, “this could mean leveraging footage of different shoplifting incidents, assembling a suspect watchlist using frames from video surveillance, and then responding to alerts triggered by a video content analytics (VCA) system’s detection of a biometric match for the suspected shoplifter,” explained Stephanie Weagle, CMO of BriefCam. From there, security or police officers could investigate further to determine whether the alert has correctly identified the shoplifter and, if so, apprehend the perpetrator before the store bears further losses.

Facial recognition can also be used to provide live analytics for industries where there are high numbers of unknown visitors (e.g., malls, retail spaces, event venues, stadiums, etc.). This also applies to large enterprises with high visitor flows, such as hospitals, universities and stadiums, that have a need to know when persons of interest appear on camera. Grimm used a sports stadium as an example. Stadium operators might flag banned patrons in its database, while box owners may want notifica- tions when VIPs are onsite, in order to properly greet them and provide a superior level of customer service. “To support effective ‘watchlists’ — both for threats/concerns and for VIPs — facial recognition systems must be adept at high accuracy under the real-world conditions of identifying people in live video. This means avoiding false positive matches and reliably identifying people despite variations in lighting, orientation and facial occlusions due to scarves, glasses and hats,” Grimm explained. Customers from schools, office buildings and manufacturing are also using facial recognition to provide secure access to facilities. “In these cases, facial recognition systems enhance security in ways that are superior to badges, which can be easily stolen, and also offer features that catch piggybacking instances to offer a more accurate assessment of who is entering and exiting,” Grimm explained.

Facial recognition can also enhance convenience over existing access management solutions. For example, with facial recognition users no longer have to deal with situations where badges are forgotten at home or left on a desk. Grimm added that for secure access, facial recognition solutions should include anti-spoofing to prevent unauthorized access to those attempting to use a photo to gain entry.

How Businesses Should Protect Privacy When Using Facial Recognition

As facial recognition becomes more ubiquitous, concerns about privacy are at an all-time high.

Facial recognition has been entrenched in controversy lately. San Francisco recently made headlines by becoming the first city in the U.S. to ban the use of facial recognition technology by law enforcement and government agencies; however, businesses are not included in this ban.

Built-in facial recognition in smartphones has helped ease the general population’s concerns over biometrics by making it a norm. However, many civil liberties groups and consumers are still just as concerned about how enterprises are using and storing facial recognition data. The determination of privacy is often dependent on the use case. In some instances, privacy is determined by the governing entity. For example, the Global Entry program, administered by the US Department of Homeland Security, uses facial recognition to verify that the person in front of the camera is the same as the one in the passport photo. “Not only is consent and privacy in this instance ‘implied,’ but also legally mandatory,” said Doug Aley, CEO of Ever AI.

On the other hand, consumer expectations of privacy and consent are often contingent on the application. “We typically find implied consent in situations where consumers are expecting it (e.g., consumers expect that bad actors are not allowed entry into the country, and so the concept of face recognition to identify them is acceptable),” Aley explained. However, there is a delicate balance that will come down to the difference between mission-critical applications (e.g., where the government doesn’t need permission to use an individual’s face) versus general purpose face recognition for casual, entertainment-focused applications, he added.

In terms of legislation, laws regarding privacy are rapidly evolving around the world. In the U.S., states such as Illinois, Texas and Washington have specific biometric privacy laws governing the use, collection and storage of biometric data. In Europe the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) also has specific clauses mandating how biometric data can be collected, used and stored. For example, the GDPR states that EU residents must give explicit consent before their data can be collected, and that they have the right to withdraw consent at any given time — this is known as “the right to be forgotten.” Dan Grimm, VP of Computer Vision and GM of SAFR at RealNetworks, believes regulations are needed at a national level in the U.S., not just by jurisdiction. This would help to provide a baseline for how facial recognition can be deployed in ways that take into account the “important missions of our customers and the interest of the general public.”

While making sure all facial recognition deployments abide by privacy regula- tions is a given, whether in the cloud or on premises, businesses can further maintain privacy by doing their part. This should include ensuring that all data is encrypted in transit and at rest; systems are built with stringent cyber protections; providing the ability for individuals to be deleted from a system; and offering an opt-in/opt-out structure that encourages users to provide consent around the use of facial recognition. “For SAFR from RealNetworks, we find this particularly important and not only include these features out of the box, but also provide our customers with best practices for implementing facial recognition,” Grimm added.

From a consumer’s perspective, concerns surrounding facial recognition rests more in the hows (e.g., how it is being used, how it is being transmitted and how it is being stored) rather than the actual use of the technology, according to Shawn Mather, Director of Sales for the U.S. at Intelligent Security Systems (ISS). For this reason, he explained that privacy is much more an issue of application. In the future, we can expect that governments worldwide will continue to develop policies to regulate the use of biometric technologies, as well as define the rights of opting out of being tracked digitally. We may even see more cities opt to follow in the footsteps of San Francisco and ban certain applications of facial recognition technology altogether.

What’s Required for Businesses to Deploy Facial Recognition?

Getting the most out of facial recognition requires the right equipment; however, needs may vary by application.

The hardware needs of businesses wanting to deploy facial recognition can vary depending on the application. Not every situation requires the highest resolution camera or the highest computing power, nor does every every environment pose the same challenges (e.g., lighting, crowding, weather, etc.). Generally, in order to deploy a facial recognition system what is needed are a well-tuned camera, local computing power, and software. Hardware systems must be paired with the appropriate computing power to run facial recognition efficiently, which depends on whether you are managing a high- or low-density environment.

However, hardware requirements can vary greatly depending on the application and deployment architecture. For example, secure-access use cases, where you are viewing a few faces at a given time, can leverage lower-resolution cameras with lower frame rates and require less computing power (in addition to deploying fewer cameras), which effectively lowers your total cost of ownership (TCO), explained Dan Grimm, VP of Computer Vision and GM of SAFR and RealNetworks.

On the other hand, when using watchlists, deploying more cameras can improve accuracy and performance. Grimm added, “If the facial recognition platform supports a distributed architecture by doing detection at the edge and recognition in the cloud, then you’ve not only lowered TCO, you’ve also increased your ability to scale in a massive way.”

In the early days of face recognition, there was often a tradeoff between accuracy and device power. “Lower powered devices, either in terms of chipset, bandwidth requirements or camera resolution, suffered from lower accuracy,” noted Doug Aley, CEO of Ever AI. Today, Ever AI has had success in being able to deploy on everything from a single core legacy processor all the way up through a cluster of high-powered GPUs, like an NVIDIA T4. “There are now other companies like ours where the accuracy tradeoff is no longer an issue,” Aley added. Nowadays, speed is where the major variability comes in — the more powerful the hardware, the faster the speed of matching and the faster the overall user experience. Aley explained that most modern chipsets, especially from a quad-core onward, are going to be very fast. Furthermore, today’s face recognition models, and the frameworks off which these models are built, are getting more adept at handling lower-power chipsets. Shawn Mather, Director of Sales for the U.S. at Intelligent Security Systems (ISS) highlighted software integration issues over complications with hardware. Software providers, however, can overcome these challenges by making their solutions compatible with VMS solutions and electronic access control solutions. The type of facial recognition — 2D or 3D face recognition technology — a businesses chooses to deploy may also come with its own specific set of challenges and requirements. A report by MarketsandMarkets noted that captured images from earlier 2D facial recognition technology were highly dependent on illumination, meaning poor lighting significantly affected image quality. Another challenge was the “incompatibility of integration between software tools and biometric hardware devices.”

However, the report expects 3D technology to have the largest market share in the coming years. Unlike 2D technology, 3D technology is not dependent on illumination. This enables it to capture higher-quality images in uncontrolled environments, such as poorly lit or completely dark areas. Something else to consider in the years to come are facial recognition cameras, where the recognition process is done on-board at the frontend. These types of cameras, though, require strong computational power since all of the tools for recognition are on-board. While several camera companies are developing face recognition cameras, the overall market is still in a fledgling state, but may be something to look forward to in the future.

AI, Analytics Power Luxury Retail Customer Experience

The personal luxury goods market is growing, thanks to renewed interest from millennials. The retail channel of the global luxury goods market grew 4 percent in 2018, according to a report by Bain & Company. However, it still faces tough competition from wholesalers and online sales.
Izvor: a&s International
E-mail: redakcija@asadria.com

From a regional standpoint, China, Japan, Europe and the United States all saw positive market growth in 2018. Chinese consumers are leading the growth trend both domestically and abroad, with an estimated 33 percent of global luxury spend in 2018, according to Bain & Company.

Nowadays, everything is becoming digitally influenced in one way or another, and luxury sales are no exception. A report by McKinsey & Company stated that nearly 80 percent of luxury sales today were “digitally influenced,” meaning that “in their luxury shopping journeys, consumers hit one or more digital touch points.”

For luxury retailers, this means it is becoming critically important to better understand customers’ wants and needs in order to meet and exceed brand expectations. That is why luxury retail is finally starting to utilize artificial intelligence (AI), video analytics and other technologies and techniques more widely. By using such solutions, luxury retailers are now able to get a more in-depth look into what their customers want, not only improving the customer experience but also driving sales.

Luxury Brands Turn to Technology to Woo VIP Shoppers

Providing the best customer experience is one of the most important aspects of luxury retail, and retailers are turning to technology to ensure every customer feels like a VIP.

Tough competition for high-spending consumers means luxury retailers must provide VIP service at every step of the way. As Ray Hartjen, Marketing Director at RetailNext, puts it: “Shoppers don’t need to shop at any brand. Brands need to make shoppers want and feel like they need to shop a brand. Technology can help.”

Pressured by new entrants and online sales, luxury retailers are adopting fresh tools to better understand their customers. According to Andrew Fowkes, Head of Retail Center of Excellence at SAS UK and Ireland, this includes “looking at the end-to-end lifecycle of the products and services they sell — recognizing the importance and profit that can be made from ‘outlet’ business as well as full price offerings.” Hartjen pointed to the “connected journey” of high-end consumers, saying that following this from beginning to end could provide key information to retailers. “It will be important for luxury retailers to tie into and integrate seamlessly with shoppers’ connected journeys. They will need to understand how shoppers’ online experiences drive store visits, and how store visits have tangential and residual impacts later on in the brand’s digital touch points and channels. And, of course, they need to understand the key branded interactions that convert shoppers into buyers,” Hartjen explained.

“Luxury retailers are in many ways leading the retail industry’s response to shoppers’ connected journeys. Activations are regularly popping up around the globe where influencers and shoppers experience a brand and its ethos in ready-for-Instagram settings. The activations are more brand showroom than retail store, where the brand is the hero, not its products, and they allow for an almost continual sharing through shoppable social media platforms,” Hartjen said. “Luxury is investing in the shopping experience, because it’s what shoppers want and crave, and what’s good for shoppers is good for business.” Parallel to understanding the connected shopping journey is the need to understand who the shopper is. “Relevant communication and engagement is paramount to success, and in the luxury sphere, relevant means personalized,” Hartjen added. “The luxury segment needs to engage on a personal level, and to get shoppers to reveal personal information, there has to be value in it for the shopper. Those brands that do it well will have a loyal customer for life.”

While gathering consumer data can help retailers provide a personalized shopping experience, they must also comply with GDPR regulations. For instance, although video analytics and face recognition data is useful, GDPR rules require customer consent before such data can be used. But Stephanie Weagle, CMO of BriefCam, believes that should consumers opt in, luxury retailers can use data to optimize and personalize the shopping experience even further.

“Luxury retailers can create lists of VIP customers and upload images of these visitors to their video-content analytics engine. The video analytics solution can be configured to alert operators when key customers are recognized entering the store. By triggering a call to action any time a VIP customer walks into the store, sales associates can be mobilized to engage the visitor immediately and personally. When face recognition data is integrated with historic sales data, the retailer can quickly review and understand individual customer shopping trends and prefer- ences based on past purchases, and use this information to share personalized and relevant information and offers to drive sales,” Weagle said.

How Machine Learning, AI Improve the Luxury Retail Experience

Luxury retailers are utilizing machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) to better understand customer needs and improve the shopping experience.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning are being introduced and utilized by nearly every industry. This includes the luxury retail sector, where advanced algorithms are allowing retailers to enhance the customer experience both in-store and online. Brands such as Dior have launched AI chatbots that can interact with and make recommendations to online shoppers. Burberry’s flagship store in London meanwhile, has fully embraced the digital age with a host of interactive multimedia tools, including smart mirrors that double as screens. In-store, luxury retailers are using AI and augmented reality (AR) to provide customers with a more personalized and immersive shopping experience. An example of this is smart mirrors, which can automatically recommend accessories for a given outfit, as well as allow shoppers to make a 360-degree video and change the color of clothes.

While luxury retailers still rely on human sales associates for the time being, AI and machine learning are playing an increasingly larger role in helping brands interact with their customers. As a report by McKinsey & Company states: “Big data and machine learning are bringing authen- ticity and relevance back into the customer relationship,” by providing advanced analytics to help brands offer services uniquely tailored to each customer and occasion. According to Andrew Fowkes, Head of Retail Centre of Excellence at SAS UK and Ireland, “applying machine learning to in-store data has great potential to help luxury retailers better understand their customers through their entire lifecycle.” He added retailers were also “utilizing these techniques to better understand demand patterns, to have the high-value merchandise in the right part of the world to fulfill demand.” Fowkes said luxury retailers were deploying machine learning techniques to better understand their customers and keep them engaged with a brand. Such techniques were also used to “apply more real-time context to offers or messages they put in front of their customers, or the messages their employees can use to sell more when face-to-face with the customers.”

Ray Hartjen, Marketing Director at RetailNext, emphasized the need for accurate footfall data, noting the importance of deep-learning based sensors such as RetailNext’s Aurora v2, which can accurately distinguish between customers and reflec- tions, shadows and shopping carts piled high with merchandise. Hartjen added that advanced sensors and processes were able to determine shoppers from sales associates, providing not only accurate footfall data, but also information on how, when and where shoppers and staff interact.

“Inside the store, sensors with AI determine what shoppers are doing at displays other than dwelling within a certain geo-fenced location. For example, the sensor can determine if a shopper reaches for an item, picks it up, looks at it more closely or tries it on, returns it to the display, etc. Deep-learning based human activity recognition delivers the data that allows for retailers to modify their store layouts, displays, fixtures, product assortment, staffing models — everything really — to drive the desired outcomes they’re designing toward,” he said.

Fowkes also pointed to the use of “computer vision;” a new discipline that trains machines to interpret and understand the visual world using digital images from cameras combined with deep learning models that mimic the processes used by the human brain.

“Our most developed customers can join online browsing data, social media influence and even images deploying computer vision techniques to automatically generate attributes. These attributes can then be used to fine tune customer real-time offers or future design and development of products,” Fowkes said.

Video Analytics: Providing Business Intelligence to Luxury Retailers

While the use of video analytics in luxury retail isn’t new, advanced algorithms are making it an increasingly invaluable business tool.

Video analytics are an optimal solution for luxury retailers. Not only does it enable them to leverage existing resources to gain operational intelligence, it also empowers them with the data to personalize and optimize the in-store experience. This helps to cement brand loyalty, increase engagement and ultimately drive sales. “Whether customers are window shopping, walking through the store, interacting with products or dwelling at certain displays, video analytic data helps the retailer understand visitor behavior and tailor the experience to meet consumer demands and expectations: from understanding when to mobilize sales associates to engage customers, to how to update the store layout for optimal navigation, video business intelligence empowers retailers to cater to luxury shoppers based on qualitative, actionable data insight,” said Stephanie Weagle, CMO of BriefCam.

While in-store video surveillance still has security monitoring functions in luxury retail, now more than ever it has become an important source of data. This is due to advances in analytics, which have retailers seeking new and innovative ways to collect and utilize data, while also taking advantage of existing resources such as video. “Many retail businesses rely on video surveillance for security monitoring; however, video analytics solutions are enabling retailers to harness video for more, such as optimizing operations and performance,” Weagle said.

In order to increase video-content-analytics coverage to optimize operations, some retailers are expanding their video surveillance systems. “By measuring traffic hotspots, store navigation patterns, dwell time and product display activity, the retailer can harness video intelligence to uncover trends; A/B test advertisements, layouts and displays and increase security and efficiency throughout its stores,” Weagle explained.

Furthermore, the demographic and activity data drawn from video analytics helps retailers make intelligent merchandising, staffing and inventory decisions to optimize sales at each store. Video analytics solutions are also enabling retailers to integrate data from sources such as point-of-sale (POS) devices in order to achieve more comprehensive analytics. “Retailers might, for example, draw conclusions about staff effectiveness by evaluating information about store entries and time spent in store, staff positioning throughout the store and final sales data,” Weagle said. “The ability to analyze and visualize traffic and shopping data into dashboards and heat maps makes it easy for retailers to identify inefficiencies, test solutions to problems and achieve data-driven optimization in store.”

This data can provide important insights into questions such as: Are shoppers dwelling next to a certain display, removing items but not purchasing? Are certain areas of the store underutilized or infrequently visited?

The ability to recognize and identify objects in video was also instrumental for employee oversight, Weagle added. “Rules can be configured to trigger calls to action for certain employee activities. For instance, by adding images of employees and using face recognition capabilities, the retailer can set alerts for when employees enter the stock room or to mobilize employees to the checkout when crowds start forming by the cashier.”

Slovenian Manufacturer Installs Advanced at State-of-the-Art Head Office

Advanced, a global leader in the design, manufacture and supply of intelligent fire systems, has been specified in the Head Office of a leading European manufacturer.

With more than 200 employees, Slovenia-based manufacturer, Pirnar, export their luxury, high-specification doors across the globe for installation in residential and commercial premises. The manufacturer is synonymous with quality in the window and door industry and its high-end entrance-ways have won awards for their significant design and technological innovations.

Situated in Slovenia’s capital, Ljubljana, Pirnar’s 47,000 sq ft, state-of-the-art facility houses storage, service and training rooms in the basement, production and sales on the ground floor and offices on the upper floor. At the centre of the building’s active fire protection is an Advanced Axis EN fire system linked to 230 devices.

The industry-leading Axis EN system, which was recently certified by FM Approvals to the EN54 standard, communicates with the site’s BMS, third party CO detection system, Access Control system and third-party Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) system for the purposes of smoke control, enabling the fire services to operate smoke vents, fans and dampers in cases of emergency.

Responsible for the design, installation and commissioning of the fire system was Advanced partner Bildos d.o.o., Mr. Damjan Birk, managing partner at Bildos Ltd, said: “With Pirnar’s reputation for quality and perfection we knew that only the best would be good enough. It’s for these reasons that Advanced was specified to protect their head office. The robust Axis EN system is easy to service and is backed up by award-winning technical support, making Advanced the right product for Pirnar’s Headquarters.”

“Advanced Electronics fire protection system has given us an increased feeling of safety and control, it adds confidence in how we’re running our business. We can keep growing and moving forward knowing our infrastructure protection is state of the art and constantly up to date”, Pirnar assistant director Ado Rupnik said.

“It was a pleasure to work with Bildos Ltd to supply them with a high performance, ease-to-use system that would effectively protect Pirnar’s site against fire, where production and commercial activity run side-by-side”, Advanced’s regional sales manager for southern Europe, Vladimir Zrnic, added.

Axis EN is EN54 parts 2,4 and 13 approved and its panels can be used in single loop, single panel format or easily configured into high speed, multi-loop panels in 200 node networks covering huge areas. Advanced’s legendary ease of installation and configuration and wide peripheral range make it customisable to almost any application.

Owned by FTSE 100 company Halma PLC, Advanced have a long history of protecting high-profile manufacturing sites around the World including Rolls Royce’s aerospace facility and global manufacturer of pressure relief products Elfab’s manufacturing facility.

Advanced is a world leader in the development and manufacture of intelligent fire systems. The legendary performance, quality and ease-of-use of its products sees Advanced specified in locations all over the world, from single panel installations to large multi-site networks. Advanced’s products include complete fire detection systems, multi-protocol fire panels, extinguishing control, fire paging and false alarm management systems. More details can be found on the website at www.advancedco.com

33rd ASEAN Summit ensures clear dialogue between world leaders with simultaneous interpretation from Bosch

As one of the most important events organized by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the 33rd ASEAN Summit and Related Summits brought world leaders together in Singapore to discuss economic and political issues in the region. Chaired by Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, the five-day summit at Suntec Convention Centre featured representatives from China, India, Japan, Republic of Korea, Canada, Australia, the Philippines and the United States, among others. Dignitaries in attendance included Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

With important issues on the agenda, simultaneous interpretation between twelve languages for all 1,300 attendants was a key to success during the five-day event. Making it happen proved challenging for several reasons: First, the multi-purpose convention center provided no permanent interpreter booths or wiring for interpretation hardware. Second, close to 20 meetings between world leaders took place in separate meeting rooms, with each room and meeting requiring its own interpretation set-up. And third, the temporary interpreting solution needed to be ready within only three days leading up to the summit.

Congress Rental Singapore – a member of the Congress Rental Network and official conference partner of Bosch Building Technologies – designed and installed the temporary setup for the ASEAN Summit using a combination of wired DICENTIS, DICENTIS Wireless and DCN solutions from Bosch. Responding to the requirements for each of the four different meeting rooms, the experts deployed a total of 31 DICENTIS Discussion devices with touchscreen, 36 DICENTIS Wireless discussion devices with touchscreen and 33 DCN Conference devices with language selector. For the language interpreters provided by the government institution, 56 DCN Interpreter desks offered a familiar technology platform.

This set-up allowed Congress Rental technicians to equip each meeting between world leaders as the situation required. For instance, higher-level meetings held in the two plenary meeting rooms on level four of the venue could be supported either by DICENTIS Discussion devices or DICENTIS Wireless discussion devices, depending on the conference day and how much transition time was available to change the set-up for the next meeting. For the fastest build-up and break-down, the best choice proved to be DICENTIS Wireless devices paired with INTEGRUS Pocket receivers and headphones pre-set to the listener’s preferred language.

Several of the meetings during the five-day event ran at the same time, so Congress Rental decided to centralize its simultaneous interpretation capabilities. In a central location, 28 temporary booths were set up, each equipped with two DCN Interpreter desks. From there, interpreters delivered live interpretation to delegates in the plenary meeting rooms and summit attendees in the listening room on level 3. More than 1,300 INTEGRUS Pocket receivers were available in the listening room, where attendees could follow proceedings in any of the 12 languages used at the event. At the same time, automatic camera control tracked the interactions between world leaders in the plenary meeting rooms, which attendees could watch live on the installed TV screens on level 3.

Throughout the five-day ASEAN Summit, Congress Rental Singapore kept a number of technicians on-site to ensure system performance and hand-over of conference devices between participants several times per day. Via the user control software on the backend, the digital system from Bosch provided Congress Rental Singapore with valuable data on microphone usage and interpreter performance, plus a chance to address potential issues in real time, which was highly valued by the summit managers: “I have continually received nothing less than complete admiration and the highest appreciation for the way simultaneous interpretation services were managed, and for the performance and quality of the attending Congress Rental staff”, said Chris Jackson, ASEAN, Australia Special Taskforce.

Overall, the combination of hands-on support and flexible technology platform proved a success: The over 1,300 participants of the 33rd ASEAN Summit and Related Summits enjoyed a productive event accompanied by seamless interpretation in twelve languages. In addition, the solution was dismantled and ready to be redeployed at the next high-level conference only a few hours later.

Dahua surveillance solution guarantees the safety of Recife’s subway

Recife’s urban trains system carries around 400 thousand passengers a day – it is the third largest railway operator in number of users in Brazil. To ensure a safe journey for passengers, it is imperative to increase the subway security with modern technologies and monitoring equipment.

Izvor: Dahua Technology
E-mail: redakcija@asadria.com

The main challenge was to adapt the technology to the specific conditions such as lighting, people flow and speed of a subway station while not interrupting the transportation service. Therefore, ease of operation, installation and high availability of the system were prerequisites for choosing
the surveillance solution.

Solutions
With a contribution of BRL 61.5 million to invest in the improvements for the Pernambuco subway, Companhia Brasileira de Trens Urbanos (Brazilian Urban Trains Company, CBTU) has started a recovery plan for stations, trains, electrical systems and permanent pathways last year. It then inaugurated a new phase of the surveillance operation with the acquisition of 1380 high-resolution cameras from Dahua Technology for the deployment of the surveillance system.

The Dahua intelligent surveillance system with embedded video analytics monitors 52 places scattered all over the 71 km of the railway line at the capital and the metropolitan region. The project led by Grupo Avantia from the publication of the bidding contest until the installation combines four models of network cameras from Dahua: DH-IPC-HF5231EN-Z-S2; DH-IPC-HF5231EN-S2; DH-IPC-HDBW8231E-ZS2; and DH-SD65F230FN-H – all equipped with H.265 compression and video analytics.

These cameras work every day capturing and identifying images. With an amount of data that needs to be analyzed daily, the H.265 video compression pattern, a format twice as efficient as its predecessor (H.264), is essential since it uses only 50% of the bandwidth, maintaining the same quality.

The equipment using the main features of Dahua (H.265 compression, analytics, Starlight) has reinforced the security of the Central and Southern lines of the Pernambuco Subway and has allowed the operators to obtain detailed views of the subway operations, especially at peak hours or during tourist events, such as Carnival.

Day and night, under difficult lighting conditions and even in points with extreme low light, Dahua exclusive Starlight cameras deliver sharp and colorful images to the surveillance center to guarantee the best performance in conditions of very low luminosity (0.005 Lux).

Technology strengthens user protection in a general way, because it avoids intrusions into vital areas of operation, depredations or other occurrences that could hinder the passenger transportation. With video analytics, even if the video surveillance operator is not tracking the images of a specific camera, the system automatically identifies and alerts a detected movement in a restricted region, for example.

In addition to the high technology, Dahua also provided professional technical support to guarantee the success of the installation process, which did not hinder the operation of the subway.

Benefits
With the help of Dahua network cameras, the coming and going of passengers from Central and Southern lines now have the protection of the security teams in multiple locations throughout the subway’s operation. The new video surveillance system was designed to operate in a centralized management, which differs completely from the previous single-management model. Thus, with this change, it became possible to take better advantage of the human resources of the security team at the 37 stations.

The whole system of Dahua video surveillance was thought to ensure not only the physical safety of each user, but also to avoid a common problem that causes a high impact to the quality of the service: vandalism. On some occasions, a window broken by a user can delay the routine of thousands of passengers. With the video surveillance cameras it is possible to identify suspects, trigger the maintenance service in a more agile way and minimize the impact on the operation.

The video footage of occurrences that happen inside the System of Urban Trains’ facilities can be shared with the Military Police which, if necessary, can conduct searches in the image database and use resources such as Zoom to capture details that help in the investigations. The operators themselves can alert the authorities depending on the incident.

This is the first CBTU project, which also manages the urban rail transport in other Brazilian capitals, such as João Pessoa, Maceió, Natal and Belo Horizonte. “With this case, Dahua Technology ratifies once again its expertise in projects for the public segment. The solution offered will enable the end client to have a fully smart video surveillance system that will provide optimal lighting in dark environments, 24h protection of restricted areas, occurrence alerts and high performance to operators. All this will focus on prevention and alerting possible situations that endanger the subway system as well as the security of its users”, Fabio Lopes, Channel Sales Director of Dahua Technology Brasil.

Client’s Quote
“The cameras are being installed and monitored centrally, in a control room. In the future, we intend to achieve a cost reduction for the company, since with the cameras we were able to reduce in local surveillance at some subway stations, but the great advantage will be seen in the safety of our passengers. The images help us identify crimes in the stations and send this information to the law enforcement. We are in the implementation phase and starting to operate with smart technology, the results have already started to be seen – we have already managed to identify and arrest suspects, forwarding them to the police. We are employing all efforts to train and hire new agents and I am sure we will achieve greater gains in the future”, Leonardo Villar Beltrão – CBTU Recife Superintendent.

Integrator’s Quote
“The partnership with CBTU has been very successful, due to the peculiarities of the implementation of a state of the art security system. It was a major deployment challenge, since all the systems of the stations were in full operation. It was a result of an outstanding team effort with the full support and partnership of the Client, so that the implementation would occur in the best way possible and with minimal interventions in the subway system”, Hamilton Valentin – Avantia’s Operational Director

Dealer’s Quote
“This project is of extreme importance to Spectra. We have been close to Avantia and Dahua Technology throughout the implementation process, providing them with all the necessary support in the delivery of solutions”, Reginaldo Mattos, Director of Spectra Systems.

Latest surveillance technologies keep seaports more secure

With two huge targets — people and assets, seaports are a likely mark for attacks. Video surveillance plays an important part of ensuring the safety and security of seaports, and new and improved technologies are helping do so.
Izvor: a&s International
E-mail: redakcija@asadria.com

Seaports are a gateway for people and goods to enter different cities and countries around the world. This, however, also makes them vulnerable to a number of threats. A robust video surveillance system, then, becomes a critical component of the overall safety and security solution at a seaport.

The requirements for a video surveillance solution at seaports have evolved over time. Not only does it serve to provide security and surveillance functions, but also for worker safety and operations. These evolving needs are the result of a growing risk landscape and growing threat of terrorist attacks.

“As families enter and exit cruise ships, large crowds are often shuffling around, creating a critical component of necessary protection for these spaces. For ships carrying goods and materials, the possibility exists that the inventory may present something suspicious that poses a potential threat, requiring proper scanning and searching techniques,” said Jumbi Edulbehram, Regional President of Americas at Oncam.

Video surveillance provides a valuable solution to safeguard these aspects, allowing officials to observe behavior in real time and quickly identify a risk or vulnerability.

Major Challenges
Seaports have many critical surveillance needs such as safeguarding against unlawful entry and terrorist threats, but they must also deal with day-to-day theft and damage issues. All this becomes increasingly difficult to deal with due to the large physical area that encompasses a port’s security responsibility and the fact that ports typically never close, having activity at all hours of the day and night. As a result, ports also encounter issues deciding how to effectively and economically protect a very large area. Something else to consider is that trade activity increases every year, resulting in more traffic and more assets the port must monitor and protect.

When it comes to deploying a video surveillance solution, major challenges at a seaport include the environment being very corrosive (salt water), harsh weather (fog and humidity) and the expansive layout. One way to combat such conditions is by taking advantage of surveillance cameras certified to operate despite constant sunlight, steady rainfall or high winds. Facility lighting and an ever-changing landscape of moving containers stacked to differing heights also pose a challenge for seaport security. “Stacking containers provide a real challenge for video coverage and ability to effectively illuminate areas and corridors between the stacks,” said Mark Brown, Director of Research and Development for Security at FLIR Systems. Another challenge is that ports are always full of activity.

“Although there are restricted areas that can be monitored using traditional surveillance technology, a port must also monitor and police areas that are open to the public and experience high volumes of foot and vehicle traffic,” said Eric Olson, VP of Marketing for PureTech Systems. “Ports must be able to quickly obtain usable surveillance data in the case of an event, and use advanced technologies to help them prevent these events from occurring.”

Better Analytics Mean Better Awareness
Among the many improvements in surveillance technology, several companies specifically pointed to artificial intelligence (AI) and improve- ments in video analytics as being key developments in improved seaport surveillance.

“The continued development of artificial intelligence algorithms, especially for video surveillance, will allow ports to more effectively monitor ‘soft events,’ whereby the event does not entail an intrusion, but rather a set of suspicious actions that may indicate threat, vandalism or other form of security breach,” Olson said. “The advancement of more intelligent video forensic algorithms, to provide quicker and more specific searches across video and other security sensors, will also be a great help to ports to speed up the investigation process and provide more accurate search results.”

Edulbehram explained that AI, machine learning and video analytics are combining to create one of the most beneficial aspects of video surveillance systems: proactivity. “These technologies allow the system to pick up on unusual or suspicious activity before an incident occurs, which is crucial for seaport security. Machine learning and AI probably have some of the most promising advancements for transportation, namely airports and seaports because they make existing applications such as facial recognition much more accurate,” Edulbehram said. “They also help identify anomalies which can indicate a security threat in environments in which traditional analytics fall short due to the complexity of the scenes. Being able to detect and mitigate a threat in advance can save countless lives and property in an environment where so many important pieces are gathered.”

Brown believes developments in deep learning/CNN (convolutional neural networks) and their contributions to improved video analytic performance hold a lot of promise for the seaport environment. Brown identified several types of video analytic functions that are improving seaport surveillance security, such as license plate recognition (LPR) and optical character recognition for the control of vehicular and container traffic entering, leaving and within the facility; object tracking analytics for forklift, truck, crane and container movements; and facial recognition and people counting analytics are applicable for many seaport facilities servicing cruise ships.

Improvements in Camera Technology
Improvements in panoramic and thermal camera technologies are allowing seaports to see beyond what traditional video surveillance cameras have been able to offer.

“Current technology gaps that still need to be addressed to help ports in their security efforts include the ability to monitor very large areas economi- cally in both day and night conditions. For example, thermal cameras work very well for night time detection at a distance, but they do not allow for detailed identification. While video surveillance cameras do a good job at this, they require a large amount of illumination to do so during night time surveillance. Radars scan over large areas, but do not provide a visual confirmation,” Olson explained. “The key is combining these solutions in an economically and intelligent manner to provide ports with this wide range of coverage — day and night.”

Edulbehram explained how the development of panoramic surveillance technology has allowed seaport security officials to mitigate the issue of comprehensive coverage by providing the ability to obtain a complete view of the scene with no blind spots. “Investing in panoramic 360-degree cameras in seaports and incorpo- rating them as part of an overall video surveillance plan can help ensure total situational awareness,” he said.

Developments in thermal imaging with increased resolution have allowed thermal cameras to be utilized for analytics that are more reliable and not affected by challenging lighting conditions, according to Brown. “Multi-sensor cameras with visible and thermal cameras in the same housing allow for the analytics to run on the thermal payload and the visible to be utilized for identification of the intruder.”

In terms of radar, Brown noted that in combination with video surveillance for target identification, radar technologies are very effective for detection. In addition, it can be used to automatically slew cameras to detected radar targets and provide a very effective solution for covering large open areas on the waterside or land perimeters.

Developments in Drone Surveillance
Drone technologies from both the threat and security tool perspective can have a large impact in the seaport environment. Drones enabled with AI algorithms and traditional video tracking analytics also provide an exciting new opportunity for seaports. “Seaports have a significant area to cover, and the ability to automatically dispatch a drone to the location of event, to not only provide video verification, but provide a means of deterrence through the drone’s presence, can allow ports to not only react faster to events, but also manage ay-to-day operation costs,” Olson said.

“The recent ability to combine geospatial alarm and tracking with video equipped drones will now allow ports to perform guard tours and react to events using automatically deployed and controlled drones,” Olson added. “This technology will allow ports to not only react faster to events, but also manage day to day operation costs of security guards, security vehicles, training, fuel, etc.”

Despite this, drone detection and defense is still an emerging market with many challenges both from the detection side and ability to proactively stop drone threats, according to Brown. “Current drones have the capabilities to be utilized from the surveillance perspective for patrols and automated response to incidents, however there is still a gap in automated charging and enclosure solutions. Legislation around entirely autonomous control is also evolving and is a limiting factor in deploying fully automated systems,” he added.

Future Advances for Safer Seaports
The recent technological advances in camera technology and incorporation of AI for better analytics are all providing seaports with improved surveillance solutions. In the future, as AI in video surveillance and developments in drone use for surveillance all get even better, seaport operators will be able to enjoy more proactive solutions for even more effective and efficient monitoring.

How the Cloud and Edge Computing Can Help Seaports

Edge computing and cloud management could play key roles in seaport surveillance, according to Steve Hu, Product Manager of Merit LILIN. This is due to their maintainability and construction cost.

Seaports are vast and require a large number of cameras to adequately monitor the entire premises. This is where edge computing and the cloud could help seaport security operators manage systems more efficiently. “Without edge computing, a great burden will be imposed on the central management system. Also, due to the huge size of the areas needed to be covered, cameras are usually installed in places that are difficult to reach. Cloud management could make maintenance much easier and reduce relevant costs,” Hu said.

In the past, edge computing and cloud management were limited by poor computing performance and limited network connection capability. However, these two issues are now more stable and reliable, making it possible to upgrade and operate surveillance systems in a more efficient way.

“In terms of cloud management, IPv6 was the key to implement a firewall-less or NAT-less remote-control system. But now LILIN has developed a remote management system — DeviceHub,” Hu explained. “No more complicated network settings should be made, just plug and play. That can be seen as an important milestone in breaking the limits of existing network conditions.”

How PSIM Makes Monitoring Seaports More Effective, Efficient

To properly surveil seaports, many disparate systems have been used over time. Erez Goldstein, Director of Global Marketing at Qognify, explains how using a PSIM to integrate these systems can create a more effective, efficient system.

Seaports are both sensitive in terms of their operations and unique in terms of their structure — its open environment to the sea makes it hard to close by usual means, as well as the high volumes of employee and visitor traffic. As such they have invested heavily over time in safety and security systems including: video surveillance, video analytics, intruder and hold up alert systems, access control, sonar, radar, automatic identifi- cation system, and GPS, as well as the increasing use of drones, according to Goldstein.

“With so many disparate systems in operation, the big challenge (and opportunity) is to integrate them in a way that delivers a common operating picture that security teams can use to proactively monitor, manage and maintain the security of the port, its people, vessels and cargo,” he added. “However, seaports have also realized that while a single centralized platform can help to significantly reduce exposure to risks and improve incident management, it can also make them more operationally efficient.”

Take for example, Naftoport — Poland’s only oil transshipment port, where it is estimated that just one day of not operating would result in a loss as high as US$200,000.

“The seaport is using our PSIM solution, Qognify Situator, to integrate its diverse array of security systems and sensors. This includes 21 channels of our intrusion detection video analytics technology for both analog and infrared,” he added.

In doing so, Naftoport has been able to automate 40 day-to-day security procedures and implement a response plan that helps its security teams to pre-plan, coordinate and manage the response to emergency situations in real-time, as well as effectively manage routine security operations.

Choosing the Right Vendor for Seaport Needs

Choosing the right vendor can be just as important as choosing the right equipment. The following are things to consider when choosing a vendor for seaport needs.

One thing to consider is the ability to propose solutions that provide a high level of security required for critical facilities, said Mark Brown, Director of Research and Development for Security at FLIR Systems. Not only that, but the vendor should also be able to aid in operations allowing the port to operate efficiently and effectively. “This implies an understanding of operations and an integration capability with additional systems,” he added.

Integration is absolutely a key priority for seaport security operators, according to Jumbi Edulbehram, Regional President of Americas at Oncam, as these installations often require numerous cameras and additional security equipment to ensure a comprehensively safe facility.

“Integration is also a factor when it comes to leveraging existing infrastructure; many seaports may already possess security technology and are looking to augment their system by incorporating the newest solutions. In order for these integrations to work smoothly, seaport security operators are looking for vendors that implement an open-platform design, enabling seamless collaboration between technologies and systems,” Edulbehram explained.

Eric Olson, VP of Marketing for PureTech Systems pointed out that the unique environment of a traditional port — large physical areas with high activity — also makes it very important that they chose a solution provider, not just a product supplier. “No one sensor can provide a port the most effective means of surveillance, and as technology advances, ports need to have their solution provider be agile in reacting to their needs.”

Thanks to SMARTair® wireless access control, weekly key management time went from 5 hours to 5 minutes

London, May 2019 – Each of Denmark’s 550 individual Free Schools shares a common ethos: parents and students participate together in activities outside school hours, including weekends. It’s excellent for building a school community. Not so easy for managing security, when issuing and tracking keys becomes a 7-day task every week. The Vejle Friskole turned to SMARTair® wireless access control for a solution.

Previously, key management ate up “a very long time, approximately 5 hours a week,” explains Henrik Kækel, Technical Service Officer at Vejle Friskole.

Secure wireless electronic locks, already proven in schools across Europe, were the answer. Vejle Friskole’s mechanical keys have been replaced by a SMARTair® access control system. Over 80 doors and cabinets around the school are secured with SMARTair® wireless devices. Even at a historic property like Vejle Friskole, battery-powered SMARTair® devices are easy and unobtrusive to retrofit.

Now approximately 250 students, teachers and parents each carry their own key fob, programmed with individual access permissions. Because the SMARTair® system portfolio has locking devices tailored to different kinds of openings, everyone at the Friskole opens the right doors and cabinets with a single fob. There’s no more need for the school to distribute separate keys for student or staff lockers, for example.

Time-saving key management
“It was really bad because we had big problems with keys that were lost,” says Henrik Kækel. “There was a lot of work in key administration.” SMARTair® is easy for the school to manage. Today, Vejle Friskole staff spend around 5 minutes a week managing their access system. “It’s incredibly easy to figure out… it takes 1 minute to code a student,” he adds. Even managing the leasing of school buildings for non-school events is simple and secure. School facilities staff issue fobs for the duration of the event, then cancel them immediately afterwards – with no concerns someone may have copied a physical key.

In addition to making everyday life easier and saving staff time and admin costs, SMARTair® has increased security. Using the intuitive SMARTair® software, they always have an overview of who has been at the school, and when. Audit trails are generated and monitored in real time using their SMARTair® system. And it’s no disaster if a credential gets lost. Henrik adds: “Then we cancel the credential and issue a new one.”

Vejle Friskole’s SMARTair® system is easy, fast and cost-effective to extend to new doors, cabinets and users — at the beginning of a new school year, or any time they choose.

To learn more about how SMARTair® can make your school safer — and save you time and expense — visit https://campaigns.assaabloyopeningsolutions.eu/smartair-schools

Vertical solution: Advancements in analytics enhance airport surveillance

Due to the strict regulations for safety and air travel, airports require comprehensive security technology. To meet these requirements, the world’s largest airports use some of the most advanced technologies available — some of which are centered around video surveillance.
Izvor: a&s International
E-mail: redakcija@asadria.com
Kategorije za web: Transport, video surveillance, Software, Access Control

Airports today are more focused on security than ever before. The number of attacks on airports in recent years have only further highlighted the need to better protect passengers and staff, even the reputation of the airports themselves. In terms of video surveillance, in the past it has been used as a source of video verification or observation into what has happened, but it has since become an essential source of data, too.

Developments in Analytics
Video analytics are in high demand at airports. With so many cameras to monitor, video surveillance that works with advanced video analytics to proactively identify potential threats is critical to the success of a security plan. Furthermore, these technologies can help operators identify the most critical information at any given time.

“Powered by sophisticated, computer- based algorithms, these advanced analytics incorporate neural networks and deep learning to imitate a human’s ability to recognize, allowing the technology to adapt to and learn from new situations,” said Alan Stoddard, VP and GM of Situational Intelligence Solutions at Verint. “These innovations open up new doors to airports because they can deliver the accuracy and scalability required to support advanced recognition in real-world environments with heavy traffic and diverse popula- tions, rather than relying on one-to-one scenarios.”

Jumbi Edulbehram, Regional President of Americas at Oncam, pointed out how airports are a notori- ously difficult environment for traditional analytics to work well. However, nowadays with machine learning-based analytics things are changing.

Machine-learning based analytics are capable of learning what is “normal” in a scene over time and raising an alert when something is out of the ordinary, such as people going the wrong way, bags left unattended for a period of time, etc. This is making it much more valuable. “These analytics may also be able to identify behaviors/anomalies in the scene that had previously gone unnoticed, which could be useful for airport security or even for operational efficiencies,” Edulbehram added.

Maarten Wings, Global Vertical Manager Airports at Bosch Building Technologies, highlighted how video analytics can be configured to recognize changes in speed (running), shape (crouching) or aspect ratio (falling), all of which can be very beneficial to airports.

“With the recent addition of machine learning capabilities Bosch cameras can now be trained to recognize objects or situations that matter most to airport customers. This is important consid- ering that in today’s market there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ when it comes to protecting people and property or delivering data for business intelli- gence,” Wings explained. “Now video cameras can be taught to recognize and detect stationary objects or certain situations instead of being triggered by motion alone. With this, video metadata is further enriched and delivers data when objects are present, but also once they have been removed, therefore providing more informative data.”

More Accurate Face Recognition
The advancements in machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) are enabling analytics like face recognition to deliver highly accurate, automated and intelligent identification capabilities in mission-critical security applications like airports.

“Greater accuracy in facial recognition is obviously very beneficial at airports where correct identification of passengers, staff, etc., is critical. Some airports/ airlines have already started using facial recognition to identify passengers boarding flights, while others are using it as a biometric for access to restricted areas at the airport,” Edulbehram said.

Benjamin Low, VP of APAC at Milestone Systems noted that face recognition is also being used as another form of authentication for border control, passport and security access; tracking of black- and white-list individuals; speedy clearance in congested places; and real-time matching.

Need for Improved Situational Awareness
Video surveillance today still requires intensive manual labor. This leads to a higher number of errors since humans are not very good at attentively watching video for a long time, which in a critical location like an airport can have major consequences. Modern video management systems, however, can reliably bring forward incidents to operators and ideally enable prevention of incidents.

David Lenot, Airport Practice Lead at Genetec, noted how greater camera perfor- mance and resolution, higher computational power, AI, neuronal networks, etc., are all helping deliver more in-depth insights and improving situational awareness.

“In today’s complex risk environment, airports require solutions to help enhance risk management, boost operational efficiency and improve situational awareness. In particular, situational awareness software platforms can deliver significant benefits. These systems help stakeholders gain critical insight into an airport’s security operations — both physical and cybersecurity systems — to help protect infrastructure and build analytical data,” Stoddard said.

“By collecting actionable intelligence from any number of sensors, such as video surveillance, open source web intelligence, crowdsourcing, weather sensors, mobile locations and more, leaders are empowered to manage and respond to situations efficiently and share information easily with multiple agencies, employees, citizens, aligned agencies and first responders,” Stoddard added. “Moreover, by creating a single enterprise-wide view across disparate systems and technologies, these solutions can help airports improve response times, lower operational costs, and increase operational efficiencies.”

Improving situational awareness also involves ensuring that every nook and cranny of a facility is covered by video, without blind spots. This, according to Edulbehram, is what many airport customers most want.

“Many airports have opted to strengthen their video camera arsenal with panoramic technology — both through 180- and 360-degree cameras. Think about the expansive areas of an airport, such as long corridors connecting terminals, large areas with baggage claim carousels or spacious boarding areas — all of these areas require extensive coverage that a traditional pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) camera cannot reach without units that are pointing in every direction. Instead, airports are uniquely suited to panoramic cameras that can maintain situational awareness in these vast areas and help officials track individuals to critical choke points, where narrow field-of-view cameras can help identify persons of interest in an investi- gation,” Edulbehram explained.

Major Challenges
Airports today face a massive increase in passenger counts. Not only this, but high volumes of luggage, public and employee access, and the vast size of these facilities can pose problems for integrators when implementing video surveillance solutions. Furthermore, wide-open spaces around a perimeter and large passageways from terminal to terminal can present a significant challenge for video coverage.

“These challenges have only grown over the years, with the requirements of meeting federal regulations set forth by countries around the world on how long to keep surveillance video, which parts of an airport should be under surveillance, and how the video is used,” Edulbehram said.

Low said, “We often see older airports tearing out entire surveillance solutions because the legacy approach to using one brand of camera/software to try to fit an extremely challenging environment is no longer valid.”

Making the best use of existing infrastructure at airports means they are often very dynamic environments and physical infrastructure is constantly changing. “As a consequence, a lot of construction works are going on which need to be monitored from the control room. This also asks for frequent adaptation of the video security system (e.g., changing field of view or focus of a camera),” Wings said.

“Today a field technician is ordered to make the changes and while doing so he often disturbs the operational environment with a crane or ladder to work on the camera. Embedded remote commissioning and configuration features, which are available in the latest camera models, allow adaptation from a remote location without the need of a ladder or crane. It is done either from the ground with a smartphone or tablet application or from the configuration software on a PC somewhere remote,” Wings explained.

Lighting is also a common surveillance challenge at airports, and can especially affect analytics such as facial recognition. To combat this, in an airport environment (especially indoors), lighting conditions can be better controlled and there can be more trials on camera and angle deployment that allow for reduction of false positives, Low advised.

Lenot added, “Indoors, where lighting is mostly controlled, constraints are mostly related to the expected design/ aesthetic expectations of architects and the nature of the construction material such as glass, wood or aluminum that should not be altered by visible sensors/ devices. Finally, when used for video analytic purposes, camera locations must be selected very carefully to enable the analytic to perform at the expected quality level.”

Outdoor airport conditions can also be very challenging. However, camera vendors are now offering a greater variety of very wide angle, panoramic, multisensor cameras that improve visual coverage and may limit the burden of installation and deployment by limiting the number of cameras and the required cabling civil engineering work, according to Lenot.

Cybersecurity risks are also becoming more prevalent. Wings noted that video security solutions should offer the latest hardware and software measures to ensure data security and privacy protection at the highest level and data security should be approached end-to- end.

“This involves that communication can only be allowed between trusted devices, data must be encrypted both in-transit as well as stored, user access rights can be easily managed, and PKI (public key infrastructures) can be supported,” Wings said.

Evolving Future Challenges
As the security needs of airports continue to evolve, the need for more advanced technologies will become increasingly crucial to airport surveil- lance. Especially in today’s age of IoT and connected everything, cybersecurity risks will only become more of an issue. However, with more advanced analytics, better camera technology and improved situational awareness, airports will be safer than ever.

What to Look for When Choosing a Vendor

Airport security operations must incorporate a number of systems from a variety of manufacturers in order to achieve the type of coverage necessary to ensure the security of the entire facility. That is why choosing the right security vendor is important.

Video surveillance is just one of the many systems necessary for airport operators and security departments to deploy to have a comprehensive security solution. According to David Lenot, Airport Practice Lead at Genetec, nowadays, these entities are also expecting system platforms that unify all underlying systems, as well as the technical complexity to actually offer a human interface that grants: optimum situational awareness; stream- lines and support decision making; delivers insights to support process monitoring or incident resolution; and most importantly to improve the overall performances.

“The security vendors must have the distinctive abilities to select individual systems, sensors and devices, but also to master all aspects of IT, including servers, networking and software. And beyond technology and technics they must understand how an airport operates to help define workflows and standard operating procedures,” Lenot explained.

Maarten Wings, Global Vertical Manager for Airports at Bosch Building Technologies, explained that vendors should ideally be able to cover multiple security domains (e.g., video systems, intrusion, access control, management software, cloud services, etc.). Additionally they should be able to deliver future-proof solutions that can be regularly updated to ensure latest data protection and functionality; offer solutions that approach data security end-to-end and built-in intelligence (video analytics) to enable security operators to collect important statistics to further improve their levels of security.

“It can go without saying that all these capabilities and functionalities are seamlessly integrated with third- party vendors since there is no one-size fits all,” Wings said. “Airports are in intense competition with each other. Queues shall be short, travel at the airport transparent while at the same time gate turnaround times need to be short to keep airlines contracted. All within a safe environment as nobody flies from an unsafe airport. Airports need to optimize and in order to do so they need data to analyze, learn and optimize. Airports need a vendor with a clear digital strategy so they can make the transition toward the digital airport.”

It is also important to remember that different camera vendors often have advantages in outdoor, indoor, control room, etc., and customers should choose the best solution/vendor for their deployment, reminded Benjamin Low, VP of APAC at Milestone Systems.

How Airports Benefit From Analytics on the Edge

Video analytics at the edge allows every network video surveillance camera to be smart and understand what it sees. In an airport environment, this allows for operators, security staff and other users to be alerted to potential threats or situations the moment they happen.

Improved camera technology and advance- ments in analytics have made analytics at the edge a more viable option. At airports, edge analytics can, for example, detect counter flow on an escalator or a group forming in unusual places or a person or car near the perimeter fence.

“Built-in video analytics allows users to retrieve the right footage from hours of stored video instantly, analyze the scene by providing all kinds of statistics (metadata), and take appropriate action faster, easier and more efficiently,” said Maarten Wings, Global Vertical Manager for Airports at Bosch Building Technologies.

“With built-in video analytics it is possible to set certain alarm rules, such as someone approaching or climbing over a fence, someone loitering at the parking lot, or objects left behind in a certain area like a box blocking the emergency exit,” he explained. “Operators in the control room will be alerted the moment one of these alarm rules is met.”

This is different to what can already be detected today. “When data of multiple cameras is aggregated statistics like counting metrics, crowd density and other information can be used to inform passengers about waiting times, or other relevant information beyond security,” he added.

What’s new in access control for 2019

The adoption of new technologies in the access control market looks set to grow in 2019, as users demand greater convenience and security.
Izvor: a&s International
E-mail: redakcija@asadria.com

The global market for access control products grew by 8 percent in 2018, reaching sales of nearly US$7.5 billion, according to market research firm Memoori. This was driven in part by IP networking products, access control as a service (ACaaS), biometric readers and identity management tools. The firm predicts further growth through the integration of other physical security systems and building automation systems (BAS).

More Wireless Locks, Identity-Based Systems in 2019

From increased adoption of wireless locks to integration of authentication and access management, access control industry players discuss some of the trends they see for 2019.

Overall, the access control market has been slow to adopt the latest technological trends. One reason for slower adoption is that organizations do not update access control systems as regularly as they update other technologies such as cell phones.

According to Gaoping Xiao, Director of Sales for APAC at AMAG Technology, traditional access control is still 10 years behind other sectors. Despite this, Xiao thinks increasing awareness of the security benefits will see the market warm to newer technologies in 2019. “These newer technologies have more rigid regulations (and) in the next 12 to 18 months I think there will be a major uptick in people understanding that there is risk associated with legacy platforms, like using proximity cards or Mifare CSN cards in critical locations and updates in technology are needed to provide a safe environment.”

Jason Spielfogel, Director of Product Management at Identiv, expects to see an expansion in the use of of wireless locks in 2019. “Not only do wireless locks represent the marriage of reader and lock in the same hardware, but the ease in which a wireless lock deployment can be installed and made operational dwarfs the older, cabled methods of installing an access control system,” he said.

He added that the hospitality industry “moved in this direction several years ago, and now the main commercial/ industrial segments are rapidly following. Wireless locks also represent a way to establish fast, temporary access control environments that can just as quickly be uninstalled or moved to another location.”

Francois Lasnier, SVP of Identity and Access Management at Gemalto, highlights the use of identity-based access control across a user journey in both the physical and digital spheres as an interesting development for 2019.

“Instead of looking at each access transaction individually, with each access control system relying on disparate identity systems, global access control platforms feeding from various identity systems (e.g., AD for enterprise apps, physical access database, biometrics, etc.) and taking smart decisions based on global access policies using both physical and digital context information is something we could envision down the road,” Lasnier said.

Lasnier also expects the integration of authentication and access management to gain momentum over the next few years. “Authentication will need to be integrated into access management more tightly in order to afford the risk mitigation organizations need, and in order to reduce the burden of logging into multiple apps for end users,” he said. “This is driven by an ever present need to provide access security at the application level, as a result of a continuously expanding threat surface and of an intensifying threat level. The expanding threat surface is the result of a hyper expansion of cloud- and web-based delivery, while the intensi- fying threat level is evident in the scope of the breaches in the past few years and its repercussions.”

According to Vince Wenos, VP of Global Technology and Engineering at Allegion, other trends of interest this year include: the continued rise of IP-based network solutions as a challenge to traditional RS-485 architectures; continued demand for and adoption of cloud-hosted solutions over traditional on-premises solutions; increasing intelligence in “edge” devices due to improvements in power management and lower cost computing; mobile access and its ability to drive further convergence of physical and logical security; the inclusion of advanced machine learning and AI; and biometrics.

Moving From Card-Based Credentials to Mobile Access

Although card-based credentials have long been a mainstay in the access control industry, end users have begun demanding more secure and convenient methods of access. One technology tipped to address these concerns is mobile access.

The consensus among industry players is that mobile access will take center stage in 2019. Technologies like Bluetooth and PIR are increasingly being incorporated into readers, enabling users to leave their phone in their pockets and achieve entry simply by waving their hand near the reader. IHS Markit expects strong growth in the mobile access market over the next five years. According to its report, global mobile-credential downloads are estimated to increase at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) exceeding 100 percent between 2017 and 2022. Furthermore, it predicts that roughly 20 percent of currently installed access control readers will be mobile capable by 2022.

“While the most secure environ- ments will continue to use cards as part of their multifactor credentialing schema, in the commercial/industrial/ residential markets, the shift is to move away from cards and use smartphones as the primary credential,” said Jason Spielfogel, Director of Product Management at Identiv. Richard Huison, Regional Manager for the U.K. and Europe at Gallagher Security, said mobile access was no longer seen as a gimmick and had gained traction due to its convenience and added security. He added that mobile provided undeniable benefits, such as the fact that it could be used across multiple sites and that creden- tials could be sent remotely over the internet. “This is a huge benefit for the customer in administration. It gets away from all of the card printing and keeping those cards catalogued and in the correct hands.”

Francois Lasnier, SVP of Identity and Access Management at Gemalto, said that as phones became the central point of interaction not only in identi- fying and authenticating users, but also in initiating access requests (physical or digital), it would be easier to build global access policies and make access decisions based on the overall user journey. Additionally, Rick Caruthers, President of Galaxy Control Systems, said more customers were requesting mobile applications where push notifi- cations were sent from the access control system to mobile phones with video for review.

Gallagher Security’s Huison believes the ubiquity of smartphones gives them a distinct advantage over access cards. “I think of it this way: how many people return home if they realize they’ve left their access card behind on the way to work? No one, realistically. But most people would do so if they realize they’ve left their mobile phone at home. They’re using their phone for paying for goods and to carry their cinema ticket or restaurant booking, so why not equip it to let them through doors they’re allowed through?” This view is echoed by Andrew Fulton, Head of Product Management for Access Control at Vanderbilt. “Mobile access control is in higher demand right now from end users looking for a way to incorporate their mobile phones with certain access levels within their organization. In today’s world, a mobile phone is a constant, and it’s natural for businesses to see this as an opportunity to integrate mobile access into offices and varying levels of access,” he said.

John Davies, MD of TDSi, said that while mobile access was already prevalent in residential spaces, research suggested some larger end-user organizations were already buying new readers in readiness for mobile-identification technologies. Estimates suggest mobile identity readers are likely to make up around 10 percent of reader sales by 2020. Mobile was also being used for access control in ways beyond opening doors, with security departments using mobile solutions for remote monitoring, setting alarms and enrolling employees into systems, said Gaoping Xiao, Director of Sales for APAC at AMAG Technology. “Mobile solutions provide more functional control (in your hands) of a system that is developed and deployed. A functional purpose is accepted and adapted. Mobile has not been widely accepted for opening doors, but it’s coming,” Xiao said, adding: “We will see it adopted in universities and in vertical markets where there are remote buildings such as the energy/utility market.”

Despite the benefits, there are sectors where Huison thinks it will not be adopted, such as the U.K.’s National Health Service and local authorities, due to concerns over a “lack of control of cards.”

Balancing the Pros and Cons of Mobile Access

With adoption of mobile access solutions tipped to increase this year, here are some of the benefits as well as challenges to consider when implementing a mobile access solution.

Convenience is one of the biggest factors leading to mobile access conversion. “ F o r m a n y o f u s , remembering our mobile phone is significantly easier than remembering a badge or keycard. There’s also the issue of waste, as the plastic used in these credentials can be wasteful – especially when used in large quantities, such as in a hotel environment,” said Andrew Fulton, Head of Product Management for Access Control at Vanderbilt.

Other benefits include near-instant credentialing, faster, more convenient access and lower total cost of ownership (TCO) for multifactor authentication.
“The means of credential delivery has improved and the cost of the readers themselves has come down. This has prompted more companies to consider mobile access for upcoming projects,” said Rick Caruthers, President of Galaxy Control Systems. “We feel mobile access technology will continue to gain in acceptance and capture more market share from traditional proximity technology,” he added. While mobile access is convenient, considerations over whether log data will be stored on a mobile device or on a cloud server also need to be factored in.

Gaoping Xiao, Director of Sales for APAC at AMAG Technology, added that “the cost of virtual credentials versus traditional physical cards must (also) be considered as the investment can be high for some vendors’ solutions.”

Nancy Islas, President of Maxxess Systems, said that in order to be a suitable replacement for existing card and proximity access readers, the speed and capacity of mobile credential access readers needed to be at least equivalent to existing devices. AMAG’s Xiao noted that one of the challenges for office environments was that they still required employees to have a physical badge with a photo in order to distinguish between employees, visitors and contractors. Still, mobile access in this scenario has a clear advantage — it is convenient as most people carry a smartphone with them most of the time, and it is more secure as smartphones are typically protected by a password.

Vanderbilt’s Fulton said another challenge was the large number of different platforms on which these programs were built. “Not everyone carries the same type of phone – or even a smartphone for that matter. Another consideration is how to handle visitors and contractors that might require short-or long-term access to a facility, as well as how privacy issues are handled – that is, if an employee is using a personal mobile phone for access, how much can the employer access if that phone is being used as a credential. All of these challenges must be addressed and discussed before a company can implement these kinds of solutions.”

Cybersecurity concerns must also be addressed, as the line between how we use our mobile phones for work and personal matters becomes increasingly blurred. Because of this, mobile devices were likely to become a more attractive threat vector, according to Francois Lasnier, SVP of Identity and Access Management at Gemalto.

“Users therefore should be aware and more vigilant regarding the apps they install; enterprises will dedicate more resources to end-point and access security on mobile devices. Inherently, mobile devices have some limitations in terms of security and will become the center of cyberattacks as their role to help us run our lives keeps on increasing. Therefore, security mechanisms to maintain a high level of trust while assuming that the mobile as a device could be compromised (‘zero-trust’) will become increasingly important,” Lasnier said. Other issues include diminished phone battery life, since most mobile access solutions using Bluetooth will need this function to be turned on at all times.

Video Integration With Access Expected to Continue

Integration of video surveillance into access control systems is expected to continue in 2019, as end users look for seamless solutions to group different functionalities onto a single platform.

Video integration with access control has been happening for years and access control industry players believe this will continue as part of a wider integration trend.

“Integration in general will be critically important for manufacturers of both access control and video components, such as cameras and management systems. The shift toward video integrated with access control is a natural extension of this trend and manufacturers that make this a critical component of their offering will be more successful than those that don’t,” said Andrew Fulton, Head of Product Management for Access Control at Vanderbilt.

Nancy Islas, President of Maxxess Systems, said: “Any entity with a NoC or SoC will experience immediate benefits by merging all critical surveil- lance, access control, security systems and two-way communications onto a unified platform. Such higher levels of integration provide security and operations management with total situational awareness, allowing them to coordinate the activities of first responders and the people they are protecting with the information they need to know in the event of an emergency.”

Rick Caruthers, President of Galaxy Control System, said industry profes- sionals were “increasingly looking for higher levels of systems integration to consolidate operations and tie in previously disparate system capabilities on a unified platform.”

“Galaxy Systems has supported VMS integration for the last several years and we will continue to expand with new integration partners as they arise,” he added. Jason Spielfogel, Director of Product Management at Identiv, said video “represents a simple way to visually verify an access control event, and access control represents additional data that can be used in a surveil- lance investigation. The prerequisite for such integration really depends on how the end user uses their system, but whenever cameras are co-located near access control checkpoints, it is a waste of investment to not have them integrated together and, once integrated, provide an amazingly fast way to verify events and validate correct/incorrect practices.”

While both live and recorded video will continue to be of value, solutions that can leverage images to enhance security — for example, facial recognition on the video stream — will likely be most popular, according to Vince Wenos, VP of Global Technology and Engineering at Allegion. “

It is important to note that expanded use of video technology in the consumer electronics space for logical access control and payments is positively changing end-user percep- tions and acceptance, which will allow for greater deployment and adoption in the traditional physical access control world,” Wenos said. Vanderbilt’s Fulton said solutions offering both access control and video management in a more cloud-based format were being chosen by small to medium-sized enterprises, due to the price point and services offered. Other verticals that could benefit from video integration included those in which video was a critical component to access control, such as health care, education, financial services, higher education, casinos and hospitality, he added.

Richard Huison, Regional Manager for the U.K. and Europe at Gallagher Security, sees video surveillance integration with access control as driven more by manufacturers and suppliers trying to differentiate themselves, rather than by market need or desire.

Instead of being a necessity for every application, Huison believes video integration with access control should be based on individual need. “Video integration simply isn’t practical or worthwhile as there isn’t the manpower to monitor video where there is a huge access control throughput. I’m thinking here of hospitals and education, for example. For instance, at Kings College London, the Gallagher access control system controls a million door movements every month!”

Contactless Biometric Access Control Spreads Across Verticals

Biometrics in access control is already a trend, and now the focus is on contactless technology.

Contactless biometrics are expected to see continued growth in the access control market over the coming year, thanks in part to more accurate and advanced technology.

The global biometrics- system market is expected to reach US$41.8 billion by 2023, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 20 percent, according to a report by Markets and Markets.

Similar to how analytics was expected to be the “it” trend for over a decade, predicted explosive growth in biometrics has also remained “just around the corner.” Today, however, significant advances in technology have lowered the cost and improved the performance of virtually all biometric modalities, making adoption easier.

“Combined with a general shift in user acceptance due to the application of biometrics on smartphones for logical access control and electronic payments, these advances will fuel continued deployment of biometric solutions,” said Vince Wenos, Vice President of Global Technology and Engineering at Allegion.

Jason Spielfogel, Director of Product Management at Identiv, said creating an access control system that didn’t require the specific cooperation of the user had always been the Achilles heel of contactless biometric systems. This is because such systems generally require the subject to be in an exact spot and/ or looking at a specific place for the system to recognize and authenticate the user. However, as technologies that can recognize an iris or a face at non-direct angles mature these barriers can be overcome. “When combined with systems designed to prevent tailgating, this technology has the potential to revolutionize security checkpoints,” Spielfogel said.

Gemalto recently announced a joint pilot program with a leading airline to implement biometric boarding. According to Francois Lasnier, SVP of Identity and Access Management at Gemalto: “The test will confirm that passenger needs and expectations are met through use of facial recognition versus a traditional boarding pass as well as satisfying CBP (Customs and Border Protection) U.S. Exit requirements.”

Allegion’s Wenos noted that government and public safety would no longer be the only primary verticals utilizing biometric technologies, adding that education and health care would also see expanded use for general access control. “In health care, applications are likely to include streamlined workflows that improve staff utilization and patient outcomes; more cleanliness with contactless implementations; and verified identity for access to patient information and other data. “Businesses, too, may dramatically increase the use of biometrics for logical access control, with potentially 90 percent using the technology by 2020 according to Spiceworks,” Wenos said.

John Davies, MD of TDSi, said construction sites were a good example of where biometric access control could be beneficial. In such an environment, it was far more practical for workers to use a palm-vein or facial-recognition system, as carrying a token would be impractical and a fingerprint could be difficult to read due to the harsh conditions workers’ hands are exposed to. Such a system would also be well suited to sports grounds or stadiums, where the professional players need to gain access to non-public access areas without having the availability of pockets or a bag to carry credentials. According to Wenos, another contactless biometric gaining ground was voice technology, as evidenced by double-digit growth in the adoption of voice assistants. “Voice authentication can be a bridge between physical and digital security and an extra layer of protection when needed,” he said. Still, there are barriers to adoption.

Richard Huison, Regional Manager for U.K. and Europe at Gallagher Security, pointed to the increased consciousness of data privacy in the post-GDPR era. He said people were worried the “authorities … are taking a picture of me” without knowing “what they might do with it.” “The fact that the system is just taking measurements of certain facial characteristics and plugging them in to an algorithmic image doesn’t matter. It’s the same reason why scanners in cashpoints didn’t take off 20 years ago — because of people’s fear. But, ultimately, because of the consumer convenience it will be a growing trend and the technology will improve to facilitate this, along with public education to conquer the fear factor.”

Facial Recognition to Drive Contactless Biometric Growth

Advancements in facial recognition and growing acceptance of the technology are driving growth for its use as a contactless biometric for access control.

Despire initial skepticism from consumers the increased ubiquity of facial-recognition technology has smoothed the path for its use as a contactless biometric for access control. Nancy Islas, President of Maxxess Systems, pointed out that the implementation of facial recognition in leading smartphones had dramatically reduced the learning curve. It is now widely accepted by the public, which will further accelerate deployment of facial recognition for more applications, like access control. The global facial-recognition market is expected to reach nearly US$7.8 billion by 2022, at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 13.9 percent, according to a report by Markets and Markets. Growth is attributed to the increased need for enhanced surveillance and monitoring in public places and the increase in the use of the technology in sectors such as government departments.

Andrew Fulton, Head of Product Management for Access Control at Vanderbilt, noted that similar to mobile credentials, users looked for flexibility when it came to access control. Biometric readers could help achieve this, while also offering an additional layer of security to protect an organization, he added.

Although new technologies are constantly being touted, the most popular biometric systems are generally the most established and practical, such as facial recognition and iris. “We see facial readers have been developed rapidly in the past few years, and many customers are beginning to use facial readers instead of fingerprint or hand-geometry readers because they are convenient and highly secure. Also, the facial template capacity can be as high as 10,000 to meet the large number of people required in some applications,” said Gaoping Xiao, Director of Sales in APAC at AMAG Technology.

Facial recognition technology had improved significantly over the years and it was now more accurate than iris recognition, said Richard Huison, Regional Manager of U.K. and Europe at Gallagher Security.

“We’ve seen facial recognition, originally developed by Aurora Computer Services, adopted effectively in controlled situations such as passport control at airports,” Huison said. However, he noted that even in highly controlled environments like passport control, the hit rate was not always ideal.

“We have the additional problem of the constraints of the camera being too tight to accommodate some people. I’m over 6-feet, 6-inches and can’t find a camera high enough to take me, while people in wheelchairs may be below 4 feet,” he added.

Vanderbilt’s Fulton said that regionally, facial-recognition software was “making its way into the Asia Pacific market as a means for contactless biometric access control, as well as analytics capabilities. We’ll start to see this work its way toward Europe and the U.S. as the technology continues to develop and companies move toward the adoption of these types of technological advancements.”

Vince Wenos, VP of Global Technology and Engineering at Allegion, pointed out that facial recognition investment had been growing significantly, particularly in China, as players see the combination of facial recognition and artificial intelligence (AI) as a major disruptor. “Reports show that venture capital investment in biometrics over the past two years exceeded US$4 billion, with approximately half of that amount going to Chinese facial recognition companies,” he said.

More Cloud and Awareness of Cybersecurity

With storage becoming increasingly affordable, the migration of access control onto the cloud looks set to increase in 2019.

Acceptance of cloud-based access control and video management solutions is expected to continue in 2019, with industry players pointing to an increased willingness among end users to adopt cloud products. While most consumers still want to invest in more traditional access control solutions, the benefits of the cloud, such as quicker installation time, automatic software updates, flexibility and mobility, managed services and increased cybersecurity, are enticing users. “We anticipate the major growth in the upcoming year will be in the cloud-hosted access control space as it opens up new revenues for resellers as well as the opportunity for many small-to medium-sized operations to economically deploy advanced access control capabilities,” said Rick Caruthers, President of Galaxy Control Systems. “As a result, we will also see cloud/hosted access control solutions continue to evolve with more features and integrations in 2019,” he added. Jason Spielfogel, Director of Product Management at Identiv, said moving control and management of an access control system to the cloud made sense for many reasons, including improved management and controlÍÍ and better security.

“It also gives access control systems nearly infinite scalability unburdened by the requirement of additional panels in an on-premises environment. The current state is a hybrid approach, with the cloud being the primary brain of a system and an on-premises backup. As access control manufacturers continue to move more system functionality to the edge (bridges and readers), it will make the cloud an even more attractive option for access control,” Spielfogel said.

IHS Markit expects market revenues for access control as a service (ACaaS) to increase to US$950 million by 2022. Small- and medium-sized enterprises will lead the adoption of ACaaS, according to IHS Markit. SMEs accounted for 21 percent of market revenues in 2017.

“Pushing access control into the cloud ensures end users can enjoy enhanced security but without necessarily having to invest in expensive IT infrastructure to do so. Access control as a service promises to be a robust and rapidly growing segment of the market for small- to medium-sized projects (up to 50 doors). However, it is not something that looks like it will take off for larger projects just yet,” said John Davies, MD of TDSi.

“Interestingly, with access control as a service presenting a new paradigm for providers, we may well see new players entering to market as a result. New entrants mean more competition, so it will be interesting to see how the market reacts and how providers meet these fresh challenges,” Davies added. With access control expected to shift to the cloud as well as become more IP-based, the question of cybersecurity becomes an important consideration.

Awareness of cybersecurity was the main force driving technological development in access control, said Richard Huison, Regional Manager of the U.K. and Europe at Gallagher Security. This was tied closely to GDPR and partially to mobile credentials, he added.

But Huison stressed that “cyber is the big issue and it’s resonating at a higher and higher level.” “At multinationals, in specific industries such as banking and in enterprise level companies, they want compliance with various government standards and to be confident that ‘whatever is being plugged onto my network’ will not facilitate hackers gaining access via the access control or video surveillance system.

“In the internet of things, systems that meet a range of global standards such as the U.K.’s Cyber Assurance Products (CAPs), the U.S.’s FIPS and Australia’s Type 1A are where genuine cyber resilience will be found. In the U.K., for instance, only a handful of the 40 or so manufacturers will offer this level of standards compliance and cyber resilience,” he said.

For SMEs — where typically there is a lower level of knowledge, expertise and resources — Huison believes users need to be convinced of the resilience of their network, as well as whether their security investment is future proofed and “cyber safe” in the long run.

Smart parking guidance to support smarter cities

As governments worldwide increasingly turn to smart cities and traffic management becomes a primary concern, smart traffic guidance solutions are gaining importance. In this article we look at the market, the technologies involved and the current trends.
Izvor: a&s International
E-mail: redakcija@asadria.com

With the increasing number of vehicles around the world, managing them is becoming more and more complex. Thankfully, the automotive industry has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of the recent innovations in technology that has allowed devices to become smarter and more efficient.

With the growth of the vehicle industry, parking has become a major problem. Fortunately, the smart parking industry has come a long way in the recent years. According to a report from MarketsandMarkets, the passenger car smart parking market is expected to reach US$5.3 billion by 2021, growing at a CAGR of almost 18 percent in the ten years leading up to it.

The major factors driving this growth are concerns over increasing urban traffic congestion, limited availability of parking spaces and stricter regulations on emissions. That several governments worldwide recognize the importance of efficient parking management is also helping the market get a favorable environment.

Among the different solutions that make up the whole ecosystem of smart parking, one that stands out is guided parking systems. Put simply, a parking guidance system helps people avoid the time-consuming and stressful process of finding empty parking spaces in parking lots.

But for systems integrators (SIs) who are interested in incorporating this solution to their portfolio, there are more benefits and features to be understood.

Benefits of Guided Parking Solution
According to Harald Schmitt, CEO of the Germany-based MSR-Traffic, there are three main benefits to a strong guided parking solution — reduced time for finding a free parking spot, reducing emissions of cars due to better navigation, and full monitoring of all parking spaces. While this is the solution in a nutshell, it is important to understand how this is achieved. Rebecca Grainger, National Sales Manager at the New Zealand-based Smart Parking Technology, explained how their solution works.

“Smart parking offers various options around guidance for motorists to find available parking locations, as well as individual bays,” Grainger said. “Our app shows real-time location and guidance information from each site our sensors are installed in. The app uses Google Maps, meaning people can plan their entire journey in a user-friendly and economical way. Other guidance we can offer includes on-site variable message signage displaying real-time space availability and direction to available bays. In a multi-level car park environment, we also offer overhead indicator sensors that change color depending on the occupancy status of each bay.”

Grainger added that each of these solutions provides substantial benefits for car park operators, local communities, visitors and the environment, including:

• Reduction in vehicle congestion on busy streets.
• Reduction in pollution levels due to cars circling and idling in traffic.
• Negates the need for cities to employ teams of parking wardens.
• Increase in road safety as drivers are verbally directed to available parking, meaning instances of inattention or road rage are minimized.
• Increase in parking compliance.

A crucial factor to note here is that it is easy to get caught up in understanding the need and want of the customer when providing a solution like this, a look at the bigger picture would help the industry in the longer term. According to Paulius Vezelis, who handles business development at the Lithuania-based company Pixevia, the obvious benefit is the convenience for car owners, but the advantages go beyond that.

“First of all, smart parking guidance saves people’s time. It reduces the time needed to find a place to park, which in turn reduces CO2 emissions, as cars don’t need to go in circles to find a free spot,” he said. “A secondary benefit of smart parking is traffic reduction in the city, because statistically around 40 percent of traffic, especially in the city center, are cars searching for a place to park. Smart parking helps to reduce CO2 emission of the whole city, because the traffic is more efficient and there are fewer cars on the road.”

The Technology Behind the Solution
According to Harald, there are four major components that make up a smart parking guidance system. These are wireless magnetic field sensors, cameras, induction loops, and radar. Vezelis is of the opinion that modern top of the line solutions use only cameras to monitor parking lots and entrances/exits in combination with graphics processing units (GPUs) for information processing.

“You can use older cameras that are installed at the parking lot for security or use simple new cameras,” Vezelis said. “There are several options for video processing: you can set up the GPUs in your server and process the data locally, or stream video from the camera to the cloud and it will be processed there.”

Grainger elaborated further on this, adding that the technological components that go into their company’s guidance systems can, in their simplest form, be broken down into a network of sensors, variable message signage, app and map. These are all programmed and run through the company’s Google Cloud-hosted platform and are made visible to operators via the dashboard of their client software.

Sensors can be in-ground, on-ground, or overhead, apart from car counters and ALPR cameras, Grainger explained further. IoT gateways embedded in every single unit allow numerous devices to connect as well as provide areas of open connectivity. Signage systems display real-time information around space availability and car park capacity and provide directions to encourage traffic flow. Mobile apps that customers can use provide real-time guidance and payment facilities. Smart parking technology also provides a map that can be embedded into websites and allow visitors to plan their journey to a specific location or business.

As with most current technologies, the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in parking guidance systems cannot be denied. Startups such as the U.S.-based Streetline has come up with solutions that leverage the power of machine learning to come up with real-time parking guidance and analytics data.

The Major Features Vezelis points out four major features that AI and camera-based parking guidance solutions usually have:

• Easy deployment – there is no need to mount sensors everywhere or build barriers with dedicated LPRN cameras.
• Cost-efficiency – a single camera can cover up to 100 parking spots and recognize license plates at the same time.
• Increased security – top notch solutions offer security alerts for uncommon behavior in the parking lots. For example, illegal gatherings at night, suspicious behavior next to a car, illegal parking.
• Increased customer satisfaction – AI and camera-based systems not only help to find a free parking spot, but also usually have the “find my car” feature, as the system not only detects occupied spaces, but also knows which car is occupying which parking spot.

Grainger classifies the features into two, in terms of the benefits to customers. “First, the benefits to the consumer include having clear and accurate signage displaying real-time occupancy status of car parks,” she said. “This enables greater efficiency, as when parking in a multi-storey car park they can bypass entire floors if there is full occupancy, and once they get to a level where there are free bays they can see exactly which bays are available by looking at the overhead guidance system for a green light. Another benefit to the consumer is the proven fact that a well-run car park with good lighting and a working guidance system is a deterrent to antisocial behavior.”

The second area of benefit is to the operator, as using the sensor data gathered by the cloud-based platform they can create business rules and site planning to increase efficiency of the car park as a whole.

Challenges and Difficulties
in Implementation Grainger said that the main difficulties her company encounters that can hamper installations are generally due to site terrain, location or weather conditions. This can include cities with an exceptionally hilly terrain, sites on locations such as wharves that can’t have holes drilled in them, or areas that experience large snow falls.

“However, after over 15 years of specializing in the development of parking equipment, smart parking have a range of sensor options to choose from, so most, if not all, site requirements can be met, and challenges overcome,” she added.

Vezelis pointed out that, in general, it’s quite easy to install and start using a camera-based smart parking system that uses AI.

“Just connect existing cameras to, for example, Pixevia’s cloud and you are ready to go,” he said.“Sometimes difficulties arise if the parking lot has unusual surroundings or shape. Installing such a system can be more challenging in parking lots that have a very complex shape with lots of corners and small pockets of one or two parking spots. Trees are a hurdle, too — if there are many trees in the middle of the parking lot, additional cameras might be needed to see what is behind the tree. Otherwise, these additional cameras would not be necessary.”

Speaking more on the consumer behavior, Schmitt indicated that the market should be aware that low-priced products are not going to provide high-quality results.

“You get what you pay,” Schmitt said. “Means, many customers try to get the cheapest solution. When it does not work, customers think that smart parking systems are not working well enough. In this market, one should buy high-quality products from a supplier who also supports in planning and engineering.”

Then there is the fact that the solution itself is in an evolving stage. Greg Mason, VP of Technical Sales at TIBA Parking Systems, said that at present the main point to note is the proprietary costs. These are still in the phase and period of the evolution of the proprietary software in small batches, which makes them expensive.

“I think the silo effect of the proprietary software lowers the return on investment (ROI) from the people purchasing it,” Mason said. “So, what happens is a negative feedback in today’s market. You have high costs, with low ROI. And because of this, the hardware production becomes limited. We need to get to a higher place, where there is better ROI, based on shared information and shared data, which will increase sales and increase demand.”

What Systems Integrators Should Know
Knowing who to partner with in the industry would go a long way in making sure SIs establish a strong presence in the market. Needless to say, technical skills that are used in the security industry, especially with regard to cameras, will come in handy in this sector as well.

“First of all, they should focus on finding a good partner, who understands the challenges of such systems and has real-world experience in deploying them,” Vezelis said. “The second step would be to start pilot projects with their clients as soon as possible to show them that it’s not rocket science and can be very beneficial for the parking lot owner. Additionally, skills and knowledge of camera types, IR lighting, camera positioning, and video streaming are highly beneficial.”

To sum up, the growth potential of this field cannot be denied, especially as this could be seen as an integral part of smarter cities.

There is a debate between cameras and sensors but ideally, a combination of the two should work best.

What’s Trending: Cameras or Sensors?

Experts vary in their opinion. Perhaps this is characteristic of a sector that is still young and growing.

At such a stage, it would be difficult to identify specific trends spread across markets in different regions. Paulius Vezelis, who handles business development at the Lithuania-based Pixevia, for instance, emphasized the importance of cameras over sensors.

“The main trend right now is to use the camera-based smart parking system. No more sensors on the ground at every parking spot,” Vezelis said. “Probably the biggest change in the market came from improvements in the artificial intelligence field. Progress there led to greatly-improved capabilities of neural networks to understand and use data from simple security cameras for smart parking applications, such as guidance or number plate recognition. In the past, you needed specialized cameras at the entrances to detect the car numbers or dedicated occupancy sensors at each parking spot, but now all this can be done by using a couple of simple security cameras.”

Harald Schmitt, CEO of the Germany-based MSR-Traffic, on the other hand, pointed out that the use of optical-based sensors is becoming less popular compared to ground-sensors, not just because of improved accuracy levels but also since the former throws up privacy data concerns that are becoming more and more relevant of late.

“Single space detection with wireless (magnetic field) sensors is the biggest trend,” Schmitt noted. “Due to many years of experience, this technology is the best in the market with the highest accuracy. Cameras, for example, generate problems due to the new ‘General Data Protection Regulation’ (GDPR). Also, optical sensors can be influenced by light, darkness, snow, etc.”

Beyond these, it is important to note that the concept of smart parking guidance systems is also being driven by the rise in initiatives such as smart cities. In fact, Rebecca Grainger, National Sales Manager at Smart Parking Technology, said that current smart parking trends on the rise are the digitization and influence of smart cities. This makes sense as people are getting more and more used to connected devices and are naturally demanding more convenience in every aspect of their lives.

“Consumers are becoming much savvier and are engaging more than ever with technology options that make their day-to-day life easier,” she said. “Parking is a huge component of this, in fact, up to 30 percent of all motorists on a city street are actually looking for a parking spot. We have responded to this by not only having our app and guidance help people swiftly find a suitable park, but also by designing our technology to be scalable and intuitive. Using our cloud-based dashboard, parking bays can be remotely set to different time limits and parameters.”

Grainger gave an instance where their solution was implemented. “A good example of this is in Adelaide, where a main city street suffering from heavy congestion had its parking bays changed to short-stay paid parking, while parking bays two streets back were set to longer times and were free. People were able to see this on the app, and there was an almost instant reduction in congestion on the main road, as people would park and walk.”

ISSUES

Global Security d.o.o.

Hasiba Brankovića c, 71000 Sarajevo, Bosna i Hercegovina
Tel: +387 (0)33/788-985
Fax: +387 (0)33/788-986
Web site: www.asadria.com
Marketing: marketing@asadria.com
Subscription: pretplata@asadria.com
VAT no: 201142740001
ID no: 4201142740001
ISSN 1986-5

a&s Adria – professional security magazine for providing total security solutions is a monthly circulating publication and a licenced representative of Messe Frankfurt New Era Business Media for Adriatic region, which consists of following countries: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Montenegro, FYR Macedonia, Slovenia and Serbia.