Page 26 - Security Today, October 2019

Smart City Technologies
How solutions are deployed to ensure safety and security at the border
BTy Kevin Taylor
wo of the biggest trends today, particularly in the security surveillance and IoT realms, are border security and the emergence of local governments transforming their communities into smart cities. On the surface, these two may seem to have little, if
anything, in common. But that isn’t necessarily the case.
National Security or Humanitarian
Border security can be seen as a humanitarian issue, a national security issue or even a combination of the two. Regardless of how you balance your viewpoint, border security is certainly im- portant to countries and their citizens. Without a doubt, there is heightened public awareness about securing national borders around the world.
Within smart cities, there are a number of initiatives that can be undertaken to address the challenges facing a particular com- munity. For some people, the most important aspect of smart cit- ies is a comprehensive energy plan. For others, it’s public safety. Still others see a shared services hub, enabling bi-directional ex- change of data and information between citizens and departments of public services, as the most crucial part of a smart city. These are just a few of the many sub-segments that can make up a smart
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city. With the increasing number of devices and systems that can be integrated and interconnected, the size and scope of smart city applications is seemingly only limited by the imagination, ingenu- ity, and, oh yeah, the budget and/or available funding.
Based on these descriptions, it may be hard to imagine where, if at all, the two worlds of border security and smart cities would intersect. Upon closer examination, however, there are similari- ties in some of the technologies and systems that are used for each of these applications. So, while the actual use cases and ap- plications of the technology may vary, they are more similar in function than they appear at first glance.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Digital Video Quality Handbook recognizes three primary categories for video analytics: real-time situational awareness and incident response, non-real-time forensic analysis/digital media content search, and business intelligence. For our purposes, we will examine the first and third of these.
Real-Time Situational Awareness
and Incident Response
In border security, real-time situational awareness can be used with perimeter detection analytics to notify an operator if an area
BORDER SECURITY
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