Cut Guards?

A security management blog ran a series of posts on the use of video analytics to eliminate guards. The application is secure facilities where US TWIC regulations require that visitors without clearance be escorted. 

As I describe in a comment to that post, this is a risky way to cut costs. There are problems with saturating coverage with cameras, maintaining 100% accuracy on tracking and delays in responding to threats. Making this worse, the subjects are already inside the premises, making it far easier and faster to cause damages.

In this case, it's Siemens using the Vistascape product at the Port of Wilmington. Siemens praises the ability to use the Port's existing CCTV investment. However, you have to wonder what the security and operational risks really are.

However, the most common use of video analytics to reduce guards are usually in construction sites or moderate security areas, which pose far less security risk and are significantly simpler than deploy than the TWIC escorting scenario.