Today’s security sector is nothing if not high-tech. Digital recording, the monitoring of surveillance imagery over the Internet, the ubiquitous use of PDAs, Blackberry technology and biometric access control all point to an industry that is as far removed in nature from Joe Public’s vision of security officers sitting in the Gatehouse with their mug of tea and copy of The Daily Mirror as it needed to be.

It is almost inevitable that modernisation will result in human casualties within a given sector, and the realignment of security systems to mirror the Information Age renders our industry no different to any other. Regulation can only hasten that process. There will be fewer security operatives on site, but of better quality. The necessarily increased use of technology thereafter will offer clients cost benefits and faster, more accurate responses to incidents, but it also creates a management dilemma for the end user’s business.

Traditionally, security and IT professionals – and their respective physical and data security solutions – have functioned independently of each other. Now, the pressure for them to coalesce is increasing almost by the minute.

While both security strategies are absolutely critical to the safety of a business, the current gap residing between them renders enterprises vulnerable to attack. Clients are desperate to plug the hole, and are now turning to private sector security professionals to devise a remedy that will be permanent in nature, practical and effective.

In other words, the security industry is confronted by a golden opportunity to learn and adopt truly integrated practices that will not only secure UK plc’s many and varied vertical markets, but also grow them by dint of added value.

As this month’s specially-extended Main Feature shows, there are numerous ways in which a ‘Security Eden’ might be realised. For example, placing all of your building’s systems on a single network means that they can all be monitored on the same PCs in the same Control Room.

That said, any ‘amalgam’ of IT and security is going to require a substantial leap of faith from all parties. Integrators and technology providers are already fully committed to interoperability, but are security managers and IT directors?

Evidence suggests that risk can be reduced by optimising the interface between them. To ignore it would be foolhardy.

Source

SMT