Has the gap closed between security fiction and security reality?

Technologies, such as fingerprint and eye scanners, are innovations that have been showcased in future-thinking television shows and movies for years. Today, these technologies are no longer on the horizon, but rather they’re currently being used by leading organisations. In fact, biometric access control is the proper security term used to identify these scanners. An advanced access control system, biometric access control leverages unique characteristics, like hand geometry or facial recognition, to determine entry access or denial to employees and visitors by conducting a quick, physical scan. The system can be implemented with traditional access control and security systems to allow buildings to more accurately secure certain areas. By deploying this unobtrusive, user-friendly technology, passwords and keypads could become a thing of the past, and your building could work similarly to the ones featured on the big screen.

I think many people would be surprised at how close the reality of modern security is to its fictional counterparts. Not only can we restrict access through biometric solutions such as fingerprint and iris scanners, but we can pick faces out of a crowd with facial recognition software, and with thermal imaging, we can identify the presence of people unnoticed by the naked eye. With high definition cameras allowing extreme zoom capabilities, we can even tell someone’s eye colour over large distances. Add to this the ability to recognise someone from the way they walk, and there’s not much we can’t detect that they would be able to claim to on TV or in films. We might not be at the Minority Report stage where we can apprehend criminals based on “foreknowledge,” but we can certainly detect suspicious behaviour and act to interrupt any potentially criminal activity before it happens.

In some ways, we have moved on from reality trailing the movies and TV to a stage where the security industry is ahead of fiction. For example, iris recognition systems can’t be fooled by someone using a dead body to gain access, despite what Hollywood would have you believe! Security technology is progressing very quickly. For instance, 16 years ago, the Tom Cruise movie Minority Report theorised that law enforcement would be able to predict crimes before they happened. We don’t yet have the power of clairvoyance, but big cities with crime issues are now using technology to identify areas and patterns of crime to allocate resources to tackle problems. Integrated security and CCTV systems are using technology to track suspects and combat crime quicker than any human deterrent can. The gap between the big screen and reality is much less than the average member of the public might think!

If you watch programs like CSI: Miami, you see that law enforcers can take low-quality blurred images and enhance them to a point where previously indistinguishable faces are crystal clear. For now, this technology remains confined to our TV screens and imaginations, but the gap is starting to close. In Beijing, for example, police officers are equipped with body cameras, allowing them to scan the city’s streets whilst on the move. A few years ago, this kind of technology would’ve been firmly restricted to television and movies. In addition, the rise of 4K and, in time, 8K resolution cameras will also help bridge the divide between fact and fiction. This advanced technology can capture incredibly high-quality footage, even from long distances. However, as smart cities, smart transportation, and other surveillance programs become more prevalent, the widespread use of high-definition monitoring will increase the amount of data.