Where is Event Security Heading?

Posted on 08 July 2010

Physical security at large sporting or entertainment events has never been more critical than it is today. The inconvenience of bag searches and the associated long queues test the patience of us all, although we take comfort knowing it’s for our protection. But spare a thought for what happens behind the scenes at these events. Who has access to which area, and when? Does anyone have clearance to all areas, are players/performers restricted on specific days? Are catering staff authorised to roam freely or restricted to kitchens and restaurants?

Each staff member, official or visitor could be allocated a bar coded badge to be displayed and scanned at each access location or internal check point. The badge would be scanned and an image of the wearer displayed on the screen of the hand held device, together with a simple ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ access approval message.

We wrote an application running on hand held computers in 1995 to provide security staff, employees and players at The All England Lawn Tennis Club to help secure access to areas at the prestigious Wimbledon event. In those days, before their use of wireless networks and when mobile computers had considerably less memory, the system worked in batch mode with regular updates. Today they are using picture identity checks and an IBM wireless network to distribute and gather the data. How do we know this? Well, we’re still working with The All England Lawn Tennis Club and we are currently supporting the Wimbledon Tournament for the 15th consecutive year.

Advances in technology have made this type of application much easier for the security guard to follow, as the colour screen can be employed to instantly make the point if access is denied.

In future we could change to Near Field Communications (NFC) instead of bar codes and enable automatic access gates to regulate movement.  By using fewer security guards, this system would be much cheaper to run but would we feel as secure.  I suspect a mixture of various types of system will be utilised depending on the perceived security status of the event.

At Wimbledon all attention should be on the tennis, and thus the less restrictive and visible the security measures can be, the better.

What technology do you think will be keeping us secure in future?
Do you feel the measures taken are too extreme and impact upon an otherwise peaceful and enjoyable day?
Are you inclined to be more comfortable where safety checks are carried out?
Let me know