The COVID-19 pandemic that has swept over the world in seemingly no time at all has forced almost every company out there to drastically alter how they do their business. From start-ups to international corporations, you’d be hard pressed to find a brand that hasn’t been impacted in some way. And it’s not just a temporary thing.
When the world does finally start to return to some resemblance of normal, we’re going to see a lot of changes across the board, and security is no exception. How people interact with one another will continue to be different from what we remember, but what will businesses have to do to keep everyone safe? What will the world of security look like in the very near future? Here, Expert Security UK takes a look at the road ahead.
Access granted by facial recognition
Once businesses slowly start returning to their offices, chances are that meetings and visitors in the building are going to be closely monitored and controlled. Face-to-face meetings may soon become a thing of the past. Controlling who enters the building will be a top priority for security forces. Visitors will have to be approved and listed in advance, so security can have an up-to-date list of who they expect to see that day. We may even find speed lanes and facial detection scanners updated with rotas and schedules so they know which employees should be granted access on which day.
The very latest machines and technology are actually able to recognise a person’s identity even if they are wearing a mask – something that we may also find becomes part of the ‘new normal’.
Temperature scanning and detection
A high temperature, or fever, has been widely publicised as one of the main symptoms of COVID-19. Indeed it is usually a symptom of many infections and illnesses. Temperature detection devices have been used at airports across the world during this pandemic, and we predict that we will start to see these used more frequently elsewhere.
Theme parks such as Disney World are likely to be amongst the first to adopt such measures, which is understandable given the amount of foot traffic and people who enter every day. Larger corporations and buildings where multiple businesses are located probably won’t be far behind in their adoption. Temperature scanners can be handheld or attached to existing speed lanes to quickly establish a visitor’s temperature, and grant or decline access to a building based on the result. This is a quick and easy way to do everything you possibly can to control possible infections at the first point of contact.
Stronger need for cyber security
A huge number of businesses have shifted their offices from buildings to home. But while remote working is great for allowing work to continue almost like normal, it does come with security risks. Using personal devices for work and connecting to unsecured networks are just two of those risks, and possibly they are the biggest ones.
Offices aren’t just going to be able to return to normal as soon as lockdown is lifted. There’s guaranteed to be a transition of some kind, perhaps where half the workforce is in the office and the other half works from home and they alternate. That’s just one of the solutions being floated amongst senior management. But regardless of whether home working is a temporary, permanent, part-time or full-time solution, if it plays any part in a business’ return to work plans, then management needs to think about how they are going to keep their equipment and data safe from outside sources.
Remote monitoring and mobile patrols
Even with businesses shut and staff furloughed, there will always be a need for security measures. But could we start seeing this done more through technology rather than boots on the ground? Cameras and remote monitoring centres often allow the same level of security with the same emergency responses. Perhaps we could also see mobile security patrols, which will combine with technology to give a double whammy approach but with the best of both worlds.
There’s no real way of telling what the world will look like in the future, but we wouldn’t be surprised to see a huge upswing in the monitoring of people, their body and their movements. Which some out there may deem as a restriction of freedoms, but that’s a whole other discussion to be had.
