SI Editor’s View: Biometrics, monsters, and crunchiness

A couple of years ago at IFSEC I asked a locks expert how long the humble domestic front door lock and key could survive in the face of all the advances in access control.

He predicted it would be many years before people put their trust in more sophisticated technology because “they just like keys”.

I, for one, wouldn’t miss them – although I quite often mislay them.

Widespread biometric front door locking is closer than we think.

One up-market gated community is said to be the first such development in the UK with fingerprint entry throughout – not just for convenience but to add to the prestige value.

So how long will it be before domestic biometrics is commonplace?

I predict it will find its way down-market within a relatively short time as homes developers realise the potential snob appeal of fingerprint-only entry to their matchbox estates.

Whereas businesses have had to tread the tedious route of keys to codes to swipes to biometrics, the domestic market can go straight to it.

If you’ve got children you’re probably familiar with “I’ve lost my key” scenario (guaranteed to happen at least twice per child before they finally leave home).

Where did they drop it? Right outside where some nasty rat may have picked it up and be waiting for you to go on holiday?

With the government’s woeful record on data storage, people are understandably wary when biometrics are mentioned in the same breath. But in the domestic situation, there is, literally, nothing to lose.

Installers should keep a keen eye on this potentially lucrative market.

Official predictions say the UK population will hit 65 million by 2016. And a report out today says England has become the most crowded country in Europe. That’s a lot of front doors.

I see only one drawback. According to one report from a group looking at ID card proposals, good quality fingerprints of people over 75 are hard to obtain. Could this also hold back the domestic biometrics market? You can’t leave granny outside.

Maybe an access control expert could throw some light on this. Email me.

Monstrous analytics

Video analytics has been providing some great security stories. I thought the report about an application in Japan where images of suspects are projected on to a big screen while they are carrying out the crime was bizarre. But then I heard about the ‘intelligent’ cameras that have solved a 400 year old monster mystery at Sweden’s Great Lake. Not strictly security – unless you happened to be swimming in it – but a great example of analytics and thermal imaging combining to solve a centuries old mystery. There must be people right now thinking ‘next stop Loch Ness’.

Taking a leek

Yesterday’s collapse of Lehman Brothers has sent shock waves around the world. Analysts predict everyone in the UK will be hit by the fallout from Meltdown Monday with predicted job losses and billions wiped off savings and pensions.

We’ve already suffered from the credit crunch – closely followed by the housing crunch, the employment crunch and the travel crunch – and all businesses face rising costs from the carbon crunch.

How many more crunches can we take?

In security, we’ve been hearing about the gardening crunch (protect yourself from the expected garden crime wave) courtesy of our old friend Bill Seddon on his Gardien website.

Now it seems we’ve got an allotment crunch.

The rocketing cost of vegetables is putting so much strain on the family budget that some people have taken to raiding allotments.

The problem is so bad at one site in Devon that allotment holders have launched evening patrols.

This might sound slightly over the top, but for the growers it can’t be much fun. Apart from keeping watch all night, like garden gnomes with night goggles, what are they to do?

If the patrols don’t work they could always consider overt or covert CCTV.

If this becomes a widespread problem, allotment holders in more prosperous areas might even consider clubbing together for remote monitoring with audible warnings.

“Attention. You are being observed and recorded on CCTV. Drop those onions or that shallot.”

Camera manufacturers will be adding “vegetable protection solutions” to their list of specialities.

“Lost your leeks? Carrots been topped? Beans done a runner? Put a stop to hungry intruders. Bite back with Covert Cauliflower, a realistic looking vegetable containing a PIR-activated camera that transmits video images to your shed. *Also available as turnip”

Crunch frenzy

Where will it all end? I see that the economy crunch is leading to the health crunch for 11 million people who can’t afford to go to the gym anymore.

Are they the same ones that got so flabby and unappealing that they are now in the divorce crunch – those couples forced to stay together when they’d rather sell up and move on?

But I thought I’d heard all the bandwagon spin on this subject until I read about the hair loss crunch.

Yes, the question is now being asked: Could the credit crunch be responsible for an increase in hair loss?

According to this report, women are losing their hair and “the word on the street” is that “it appears to be on the increase as the credit crunch bites”.

There was I, thinking that this was a PR-desperately-seeking-an-angle crunch until I read that this theory is supported by a “celebrity hairdresser” and a “media psychologist”.

I think I might need one of those.