Evolv Misses Non-Ferrous Weapons

Evolv claims they have signatures of "all" the weapons in the world, but IPVM testing, plus information obtained via a public records request, shows Evolv routinely misses non-ferrous weapons.

In this report, IPVM describes its operational exercise of Evolv's non-ferrous detection.

Evolv Says It Can Detect "All" Weapons

Evolv describes its system as a "weapon detector" that can detect "all" the weapons in the world including Evolv's CEO declaring that they detect "all the guns, all the bombs":

IPVM's Operational Exercise

IPVM conducted an operational exercise on a live Evolv Express system located in New York City set to sensitivity level E (see Evolv's Secret Metallic Sensitivity Setting And The Risk Of Missing Weapons).

Aluminum and steel tubes were tested to represent a barrel of a gun. An IPVM employee used tubes of three different lengths: 10.5", 9.5" and 8", as shown below:

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For context the average length of a handgun barrel is 4-5", the average length of a handgun is 8.4" and the average length of an AR-15's barrel is 16".

Diameter and thickness of all tubes are the same - 3/4" and 1/16" respectively. Aluminum tubes were made from aluminum 6063T5 alloy (~97.6-99.3% aluminum).

Tubes were carried through the system in an empty backpack by an IPVM employee who did not have any metal on him, except for a small bracelet and a wallet with small metal letters on it.

Evolv Express alerted on the 8" steel tube but did not alert on the 8" aluminum tube.

Evolv Express also did not alert when the three aluminum tubes (8", 9"5, and 10.5") were put together and walked through the system.

IPVM did not test steel tubes longer than 8" due to external conditions, however, IPVM expects that Evolv would have alerted them.

Prior to testing the tubes, the Evolv system falsely alerted an IPVM employee who had his laptop, keys, headphones, and cellphone on him.

Draft NCS4 Evolv White Paper Notes Lack Of Non-Ferrous Detection

IPVM obtained via FOIA, draft copies of Evolv's NCS4 report (NCS4 is a government organization part of the University of Southern Mississippi and subject to public records requests). In the evaluator comments section, an evaluator noted that Evolv does not detect non-ferrous:

In a review document sent to NCS4 by Evolv for making edits to the NCS4 report, Evolv questioned the evaluator's comment, stating that "Express does detect some non-ferrous", noting pressure cookers as an example:

Commonly, pressure cookers are partially made of iron (i.e., ferrous), with many labelled as stainless steel. Evolv did not elaborate on the "some non-ferrous" they claimed to detect nor any specific models of pressure cookers they believe they can detect.

The final version of the full NCS4 report obtained by IPVM removed the evaluator's comment on not detecting nonferrous weapons, but no explanation was offered on why it was removed. More detailed reporting on these documents will follow.

Evolv No Response

IPVM reached out to Evolv three times to get their comments on IPVM's findings, asking explicitly if they can detect nonferrous metal:

1. Does Evolv Express detect nonferrous metal?
2. If Evolv does not detect nonferrous metal, does Evolv disclose this to the public and end-users? We have not seen evidence in either case, but want to check if we missed it.
3. If Evolv does not detect nonferrous metal, what level of risk does Evolv believe this presents to users and the public depending on Evolv's weapons screening?

While Evolv has periodically responded to IPVM requests over the past few months, Evolv did not respond to this request.

In our final outreach to Evolv we noted their lack of response was an indication they have no objection to the accuracy of IPVM's reporting:

We are taking that your lack of response indicates you have no objection to the accuracy of our reporting that Evolv Express does not detect nonferrous metal.

Motorola declined to comment to IPVM. We asked Motorola because they are an investor, have a seat on Evolv's board, and are a major Evolv channel partner.

Security Implications

Evolv missing non-ferrous objects raises a number of security concerns, especially with bomb detection. IEDs can be done with a great variety of materials, including non-ferrous and non-ferromagnetic.

Guns are less commonly a concern though guns may be made without ferrous materials.

Non-Ferromagnetic Objects in Governmental Standards

One of the main security detection standards for walk-through metal detectors, NIJ-0601-02, that were written by the National Institute of Justice (or NIJ) have non-ferromagnetic test objects in them.

The standards include aluminum and zinc L-shaped gun test objects and a knife test object made from non-ferromagnetic steel, as shown below:

Evolv Lack of Disclosure

Evolv has made no public disclosure of problems missing non-ferrous weapons nor have we heard from customers or partners of Evolv that this was discussed up-front as has been the case with Evolv's problems with Chromebooks and other ferrous objects.

While most weapons are ferrous, as the NIJ standard shows, the risk of adversaries using nonferrous weapons is real so security operators should carefully assess the risk of Evolv's various issues, especially as Evolv publicly hides these issues.