During the recent holidays, we traveled to visit my wife’s family in Romania, with a layover at Frankfurt Airport. While a transatlantic flight with a four-year-old can be challenging, for a security professional it was a fascinating journey. The amount of technology embedded in airports over the past few years is striking. Here are a few examples of how AI is being integrated into the most fundamental airport security tasks – watchlist alerting, sterile areas, baggage screen

Physical security has always been about deterrence, not convenience. But walk through any busy mall, stadium, or transit hub today, and you’ll see what happens when the industry drags its feet: overwhelmed guards, half-functional cameras, and a public that knows the system won’t catch much more than petty theft. The pressure is obvious. Guns are showing up in places they shouldn’t, knives slip past bag checks, and security leaders are stuck explaining to boards why the “layer

As law enforcement agencies expand body-worn camera deployments, operational realities are shifting from simple video capture to resilient data management, interoperability, and post-incident automation. With high-volume footage, variable connectivity, and rising public transparency demands, system architecture increasingly determines whether evidence workflows remain reliable under stress. Modern deployments assume that connectivity will fail at critical moments. In distribu

According to a report published by CTech on February 20, 2026, Palmer Luckey, founder and CEO of Anduril Industries, held a series of meetings in Israel this week with representatives of approximately ten local defense technology startups. The meetings were reportedly coordinated with Israel’s Ministry of Defense Directorate of Defense Research and Development. Among the companies cited in the report were Smart Shooter, Kela, Skana Robotics, Regulus, Magnus Metal, eyesAtop an

We've all seen the slick demos—hovering drones, predictive analytics, AI dashboards. But until you've watched one of those drones skip traffic jams and land a suspect in under two minutes, it’s all theory. I’ve seen two recent real-world deployments that remind security pros why relevance trumps hype. 1. The Drone That Lights the Way—Laredo, Texas In Laredo, I rode along as the local PD dispatched a BRINC drone before officers even draped on their jackets. Within 30–60 second

As small, low-slow drones become cheaper, quieter, and more autonomous, the counter-UAS conversation has shifted from theory to operational reality. Critical infrastructure sites, defense facilities, and public venues are no longer asking whether they need layered airspace protection, but how to deploy it in cluttered, regulation-constrained environments without overwhelming operators with false alarms. The competitive counter-UAS landscape includes leading players such as An

Schools in the United States face the same challenge year after year: how to keep campuses safe without turning them into fortresses. From physical access controls to behavioral threat assessments, districts are juggling budget gaps, political scrutiny, and community pushback over the right mix of measures. Into this landscape, ASIS International has released a new ANSI-approved school security standard, billed as the first comprehensive framework for K-12 in the U.S. The sta

Following a multi-unit order at a U.S. international airport to meet TSA’s employee screening mandate, Liberty Defense’s HEXWAVE is headed into a test that matters to the people who buy and operate weapon detection systems: can it hold knife sensitivity at speed without swamping secondary screening or payroll. What changed and why now TSA’s rule requires 100% physical screening of secure-side employees, with U.S. airports expected to deploy appropriate screening technology by

Updated: 02/18/2026 As enterprises migrate physical security systems to the cloud, large-scale deployments are revealing the operational tradeoffs of hybrid infrastructure, third-party integrations, and multi-site performance management. While cloud-native platforms promise simplified management and AI-driven insights, execution at scale depends on how effectively vendors balance edge processing, bandwidth constraints, and real-time orchestration. In distributed enterprise en

Suffolk Constabulary has doubled down on live facial recognition (LFR) deployments, testing the surveillance technology in both Ipswich and Lowestoft this year. The trials, supported by equipment borrowed from Essex Police, led to eight arrests across the two towns but also sparked ongoing debate about privacy, compliance, and public accountability. In Ipswich, cameras set up at the Cornhill scanned roughly 47,000 faces in six hours, identifying suspects wanted for shop theft

As critical infrastructure operators reassess perimeter defenses amid evolving threat models, long-range detection accuracy and false alarm reduction remain central operational challenges. Traditional radar systems have long dominated large-site protection, but questions persist around resolution limits, performance in cluttered environments, and reliability against sophisticated intrusion tactics. The broader perimeter security market is now seeing increased interest in high

Rising concern about violence at places of worship is changing how Americans attend religious services and accelerating security upgrades across faith-based institutions, according to new survey findings. Nearly half of regular worshippers say they feel less safe attending in-person services, highlighting an operational challenge for religious leaders seeking to balance openness with physical security. In response to a Security Guys News query, Verkada shared findings from ne

Homeland security agencies across Europe are accelerating the rollout of biometric screening systems as the EU prepares to implement its Entry/Exit System (EES) in 2026. Leading vendors Thales  and Idemia  are supplying facial-recognition e-gates now being installed at airports in Spain, France, the Netherlands, and Germany, part of a continent-wide effort to automate border checks. The systems capture a live facial image and cross-match it against passport and visa data, rep

With Windows 10 approaching end-of-life, organizations running legacy NVR and DVR systems face a practical dilemma: patch, replace, or redesign. Many centralized video environments still depend on Windows-based servers, creating mounting security and maintenance risks tied to aging infrastructure and manual patch cycles. In a written response to Security Guys , Abraham Alvarez, VP of Product at Verkada, said the transition is accelerating a broader architectural shift away fr

I’ve seen plenty of flashy demos in my career—slick PowerPoints about “next-gen policing” that never make it past the pilot phase. But every so often, you run into tech that actually shifts the ground under your feet. Two deployments I watched up close prove how different the outcomes can be when the tools work and when leadership backs them up. Case 1: License Plates That Talk Back A few years ago, I was working with a neighbourhood security committee in Fort Worth when they

At San Francisco’s free Stern Grove Festival, Evolv Technology’s installation of its Express scanners is being pitched as a way to speed entry without weakening screening, a summer-season trigger that matters to the people who buy and operate weapon detection systems because crowd volume, bags and picnic gear create the worst-case mix for false alerts and missed knives. Why this deployment matters now Free, open-air festivals concentrate risk: variable ingress points, patrons

Axon, once best known for introducing the Taser to police forces in the 1990s, has steadily rebranded itself as a broader public-safety technology company. The name change in 2017 signaled a pivot: moving away from being defined by a single controversial weapon and toward building what it calls a connected ecosystem of body cameras, evidence management systems, and now artificial intelligence. In its latest announcement, the company unveiled fixed automatic license plate reco

In a follow-on contract announced August 14, 2025, Xtract One Technologies said it will expand its SmartGateway deployment at a major international entertainment venue, putting knife-detection accuracy and crowd throughput under a microscope for security teams running high-volume ingress. The trigger matters because this isn’t a demo; it’s a live test at scale where miss risk and nuisance alerts translate directly into liability and crowd control. What the company says “Worki

The new school year in the United States has opened with grim numbers: 47 shootings on K–12 grounds so far in 2025. That reality is driving districts to look for security measures that move faster than traditional checkpoints but avoid turning campuses into fortress-like spaces. Toronto-based Xtract One is one of the firms stepping into that demand. Its screening systems are designed to let students walk through carrying laptops and backpacks while software sorts routine item

Travelers in the U.S. just got some relief: shoes no longer have to come off at airport security checkpoints, following a successful pilot that went live nationwide. But this small comfort comes at a moment of rising debate over how people are screened at borders. While efficiency is critical to keeping lines moving, lawmakers are raising alarms over the rapid expansion of biometric tools like facial recognition. The tension between flow, security, and civil liberties is res