With a robust MICE industry in the Asia Pacific, more and more event venues have been built to accommodate visitors and attendees. The need to secure these venues, therefore, arises. Amid this trend, vendors have rolled out various solutions, some employing advanced analytics, to achieve the end user’s security objecti
With a robust MICE industry in the Asia Pacific, more and more event venues have been built to accommodate visitors and attendees. The need to secure these venues, therefore, arises. Amid this trend, vendors have rolled out various solutions, some employing advanced analytics, to achieve the end user's security objectives.
Needless to say, event venue operators face a variety of threats. These can range from troubles caused by radicalized fans to false alarms that could lead to stampedes or other dangers. Terrorist attacks, meanwhile, pose a threat as well. “Terrorism remains a serious concern across Asia-Pacific. What is happening is that threats are increasingly happening in soft targets such as event venues, public facilities, trains, hotels, malls and stadiums,” said Walter Lee, Evangelist and Government Relations Leader for Global Safety Division at NEC.
Yasuo Nagase, Chairman of ASIS International Japan Chapter, spoke from the perspectives of Japan, host of the 2020 Tokyo Games. “Talking about Tokyo Olympic Games, the terror attacks are real threats. The possibility of attacks by guns are low because there is a very strict gun control here. But explosives, chemicals such as toxic agents, vehicles like trucks, flammable liquids are everywhere and easy to become tools for attacks against soft targets. We have the Shinkansen and very famous places like the huge street crossings in front of Shibuya Station. If a possible perpetrator is a local Japanese, he or she would be very smart to invent tools no one ever thought of before,” he said.
Amid heightened threats against event venues, operators require more complex security technologies to protect staff and visitors. “A layered approach that combines video surveillance with advanced video management technology, trained staff, and access control systems is necessary to help security operators effectively detect and deter suspicious events, both within and outside the venue's walls,” said Willem Ryan, VP of Global Marketing and Communications at Avigilon.
“The need for multiple stakeholders to access sensitive areas on ever changing schedules, and the ability to execute orderly evacuation in an emergency is more important than ever,” said Ken May, VP of Asia Pacific Sales for Security Products at Johnson Controls. “Common issues associated with these venues include theft prevention, managing restricted access, and the monitoring and recording of incidents that may be required in the event of prosecution.”
May cited JCI's own solutions deployed at Singapore's Marina Bay Sands Integrated Resort (MBSIR), one of the world's most expensive stand-alone integrated resort properties, as well as one of Singapore's biggest MICE venues. The property installed JCI's CEM AC2000 SE security management solution, a fully integrated access control, alarm processing and photo badging system.
“More than 600 CEM readers, many with fingerprint sensors, were installed in high security areas. The S610e readers have on-board Ethernet connection, enabling them to communicate directly with the AC2000 host server, which removes the need for an intelligent control panel in the system design. With an internal database, the S610e provides increased resilience with full offline card validation and decision-making at the point of entry to ensure security at all times, even when the host system is offline,” May said.
Advanced analytics
More and more, advanced analytics such as facial recognition and license plate recognition are also used to help improve risk prevention and post-event investigation.
NEC, for example, cited how its facial recognition technology was deployed at the entrance of INTERPOL World 2017 held in Singapore, allowing for swift and accurate authentication for secure entry into the convention. Delegates' facial images were captured and matched against the pre-enrolled face images in the database right at the entrance gate, as part of NEC's Two-Factor Authentication (2FA). “NeoFace provided an immersive experience for delegates at the INTERPOL World 2017 Congress, demonstrating the potential of biometric technologies in security and access control,” said Tan Boon Chin, Managing Director of Global Safety Division at NEC.
A lot of these analytics employ deep learning and computer vision to enhance the intelligence and accuracy of the system.
“AI is also being used to add a new level of automation to surveillance with technology like Avigilon's Unusual Motion Detection (UMD) technology, which is designed to reveal events that may have otherwise been missed. Without any predefined rules or setup, UMD technology is able to continuously learn what typical activity in a scene looks like, and then detect and flag unusual motion,” said Ryan. “Advanced video analytics technology, like Avigilon Appearance Search technology provides security operators with enhanced search capabilities and is designed to help improve response times. Using sophisticated deep learning artificial intelligence, Avigilon Appearance Search technology can sort through hours of footage with ease to quickly locate a specific person or vehicle of interest across all cameras on a site.”