Articles by Jeremy Malies

The Mexican border wall will be made of concrete; a substance that the president has used to some effect in his previous career The border with Mexico is an obvious starting point for the security community. Many had assumed that 'wall' would mean a high-tech fence or possibly just a virtual barrier of perimeter intrusion detection systems (PIDS), video surveillance with analytics and thermal imaging. However, during a press conference shortly before inauguration, Mr Trump put...

How will the UK's decision to leave the European Union affect security cooperation between its member countries and with European countries? 'Strength through unity' is the term being used by pro-European economists observing the fall-out from Brexit, but it's surely an even more pertinent phrase for the security sector and this is being underlined in the most unexpected quarters. Fifty-six percent of the referendum votes cast in Northern Ireland were for 'Remain' and even sta...

Transport hubs will always be terrorist targets since people congregate in tight clusters (Image credit: deepspace / Shutterstock.com) The attack on Ataturk Airport, Istanbul, comes only three months after the bombing of Brussels Airport. Many are considering common elements in terms of modus operandi and likely perpetrators but the similarities are largely superficial. Airports, like any major transport hub, will always be terrorist targets since people congregate in tight...

What effect will the attacks in Brussels have on aviation security? Screenings inpre-security airport areas have been uncommon, but may become standard practice Will the Brussels airport attack herald a new era of aviation security? Like the bombing of Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport in 2011, the Brussels attack took place “landside”, meaning that security precautions would have been low-key and limited to spot checks and the general watchfulness of police office...

UK citizens will vote on June 23rd 2016 on whether to remain within the European Union A significant aspect of the four-month operation leading to the capture in March of Salah Abdeslam, Europe’s most wanted man, is that French and Belgian police worked alongside each other with minimal protocol complications since the countries are not only geographical neighbours but members of the European Union. Abdeslam was arrested for his alleged involvement in the Paris attacks o...

Energy efficiency extends beyond a company’s running costs vs. its carbonfootprint, to using security technological intelligently to the company’senvironmental advantage Even as manufacturers are becoming greener and innovation is reducing our industry’s carbon footprint , is there more we could be doing? Can we adapt our general operational methods to be smarter and help save the planet? Are we learning from other industries, do we absorb things quickly...

The development of PSIM security systems and the move towards smart buildings and cities holds huge potential for environmental performance in the security industry Is the drive to give clients improved CCTV, perimeter protection, intruder alarms and access control making our industry any greener? Is technological innovation consistent with reducing security industry’s carbon footprint? In any case, green operating practices are more a side effect of current developments...

Many security manufacturers are working towards ISO 14001, an internationally-recognized standard for the environmental management of businesses How green are security industry manufacturers? As innovation (much of it driven from home video and mobile phones) continues, it’s likely that our sector’s carbon footprint will decrease since compact products use up fewer raw materials. Even casual observers will note that integrators are falling over themselves to gain e...

Technology can safeguard other motorists, and help highway authorities to communicate with wayward drivers to avoid accidents There has been a spate of accidents worldwide in which cars have been driven either knowingly or unwittingly against the flow of traffic and into oncoming vehicles. Existing and imminent technology from the security sector can prevent such occurrences, alerting responsive drivers to their error and safeguarding other motorists. I write this shortly af...

With every technological advance that canbenefit museum management comes anotherthat may assist thieves  When protecting art treasures, the first instinct for many security professionals may well be to look at recent advances in technology. Hasn’t the advent of IP-addressable devices provided sufficient tools to protect art exhibits from theft in a discreet manner? Apparently not, and entrenched attitudes abound among curators. Consultants who so much as m...

Major art heists often feature audacity that defeats even the most thorough security protocols   Museum security, like art, is ever-changing. Traditional security practices like manned guarding alone are not sufficient to keep thieves at bay. Modern security technologies such as video surveillance, motions detectors, intruder alarms and other physical security devices also play an equally important role in securing museums and its art work. Regrettably, having a...

The sheer number of travelers and lack of passport control in the Schengen Area in Europe tests railroad security’s capabilities Railroad security faces the unenviable task of monitoring hundreds of thousands of passengers traveling between countries every day, and an attack on a train in Europe last month has cast a spotlight on the conflict between offering fast and efficient transport services while conducting thorough surveillance of passengers and luggage in transit...

Intimate body search at airports also takes a psychological toll on the person conducting the search SourceSecurity.com's European Correspondent, Jeremy Malies gives an account of the Body Search 2015 security conference that was held at Hounslow, London. Along with emphasis on aviation security, the conference also covered an array of safety and commercial applications. Some of the topics outlined in this article include: New techniques in body scanning, the exasperation publ...

If airport perimeter fencing is vulnerable then covert detection methods should be used Lack of airport perimeter security would be laughable, if it weren’t so serious. A recent farcical breach of security in London is drawing renewed attention to airport perimeter protection. I want to focus on airport perimeter security, but we’ll start with critical infrastructure in general: A nun, a housepainter and a gardener break into a nuclear facility. This sounds like t...

A US Department of Homeland Security investigation showed that undercover agents defeated airport screening in 95 percent of cases by smuggling mock explosives and weapons past checkpoints. With admirable transparency, U.S. Office of Inspector General (OIG) has described how so-called “Red Teams” posed as regular passengers and exposed inadequate measures at some of the busiest airports across the United States. The revelations came a few days before Body Search 2...

The technological resources from the physical security sector available to prisons dealing with contraband threats are effective For those outside the security industry, the idea of prison contraband rarely extends beyond the old gag of a file inside a cake. In fact, contraband at prisons and other custodial premises is a major challenge: deterring and detecting it occupies many man-hours, and manufacturers devote much R&D activity to the problem. Contrabands In Prison T...

The ultimate goal is to predict violent incidents through analytical intelligence Potential deployments of video analytics, or my own preferred term “intelligent scene analysis,” are being worked on by some of the best minds at university campuses across the United Kingdom. Later this year I will visit Kingston University whose Digital Imaging Research Centre is one of the largest computer vision groups in Europe. Violence Prevention Through Analytical Intelligenc...

Anything that can incite a crowd surge is a security threat in a sports arena Security at sports stadiums is making headlines across several countries during a week when UBM announced that Protection & Management 2015 (which includes the IFSEC International trade fair) will feature Karren Brady (Baroness Brady), a career soccer executive, as one of its inspirational keynote speakers. As I type, inquests are being held into the deaths of some of the 96 people who were kill...

When a recession leads to social unrest, governments usually reduce their spending on policing and camera surveillance With elections due later this year in the UK, Spain and Switzerland, attitudes to the prevailing political landscape of austerity are changing rapidly. Are physical security budgets in the public sector ever protected from cuts, and what is the outlook for our industry? Consider the landscape: A left-leaning party has come to power in Greece on an anti-auster...

The obstacles preventing convergence with fire systems appear substantial The IT network began as a dedicated structure within a building or facility. From this starting point, we have seen telephones, HVAC, access control and increasingly CCTV/video residing on the same platform. If today’s facility managers were offered a new building with separate networks for each type of subsystem, they would react with incredulity. The exception is fire protection, where the life-...