Iain Chorlton, pictured, specialist services director at the security services contractor Amulet, discusses Project Blueprint’s future in the security industry, how real time awareness can be best be implemented, and the benefits they bring to clients.
There’s been much change over the past year. The pandemic brought changing social distancing arrangements, security officers managing vacant premises, and everyone adapting to the lifting of ‘lockdown.’ However, the innovation in technology and the way it can contribute to make places safe and feel safe has not until recently been made available to the private security sector. Security has always been ready to adapt to new risks and demands, but now we have the knowledge and capabilities to do this in real-time, becoming proactive and ever-present.
The recent terrorist attacks experienced during this year have pushed many organisations to make drastic changes to their physical security provisions, with as many as 84 per cent of security professionals calling for a single-system to record all threat data. Quite simply, there’s no excuse for compromise anymore. Now we have the technology available, publicly accessible places, buildings, event spaces and much more can benefit from using a system that allows for the sharing of clear and accurate information, in real time.
Amulet’s Project Blueprint is the first and only real-time, situational awareness tool in the private security sector. Project Blueprint is an industry first, a pioneer for the private division, and paves the path for the future of safety and security.
Unifying the system
Project Blueprint enables organisations to better manage their security, whether that be in-house or with a security partner through informed decision making, delivering an effective security operation during emergencies or business as usual. It minimises the chances for security incidents from occurring by keeping everyone informed – everyone in the picture. The situational awareness platform allows security incidents to be swiftly responded to by defining the situation and enabling informed, timely and effective decision-making. All that’s needed is a clear understanding of key information and the security professional can do the rest.
However, this is where many of the problems in security manifest. Especially in the private sector, security teams have been working with one hand behind their back. Without an accurate shared situational awareness solution, key information can be missed, or interpreted incorrectly. Weakness in communication and access to information is where many mistakes begin, resulting in confusion, differing messaging, and slower response times. Through interactive mapping, resource tracking and the unique ability to visually represent the ‘ground truth’, Project Blueprint accurately displays to everyone, at all levels of management, all the information they need to make informed and effective decisions. The platform is scalable to single incidents or multi agency/multi tenanted responses – a vital leap in making our world a safer place.
When organisations lack an ability to monitor their environment it’s not uncommon for situations to go unnoticed, or for communication to be misheard or misread. The handling and communicating of critical information are of the upmost importance. Failure to meet these demands can result in three consequences that can be the undoing of any security team. These are:
•Misunderstanding the threat: The nature, scale, and location of a threat
•Misinterpreting the response: The timing and the response needed
•Mismanaging the actions taken: Failure at all levels of management
Project Blueprints’ technical ability to get the right information to everyone exactly when needed allows for a timely and unified response to any crisis. For security, real-time and accurate information is critical in preparing for and mitigating the impact of incidents. It’s only by using these technologies that organisations can be better placed to reduce harm and recover quickly.
The benefits of real-time situational awareness
Project Blueprint provides a macro to micro view of an environment, easily accessed using familiar controls, operating on any platform IOS, Android and Window. Detailed map overlays, highlighting points of interest, weather systems, geofences and interactive routing, all clearly displayed on live mapping. However, that’s just touching the surface of what it can achieve. Real-time awareness is about sharing information in a visible, clear and efficient way, a service so advanced it can even go beyond the security division.
When a situation occurs, it is flagged to everyone using the system, allowing everybody to be notified with the exact location and situation. Everything is timed, tracked, recorded, monitored – all in real time. Project Blueprint also creates a record of activity that may be used to support investigations and enquiries as evidence in the aftermath of incidents. Showing clearly that everything has been reviewed, practiced, and implemented perfectly.
Knowledge of where people are on a constant basis minimises duplication, unnecessary and ineffective activity, ensuring there is a more effective allocation and use of resources during routine activity.
The audit of testing, exercising, and validation of plans with all stakeholders, which allows future inspection and review, can reduce corporate level risk, a capability efficiently delivered by the platform.
Project Blueprint uses technology to support evidence-based decisions by managers at all levels. It delivers a real time situational awareness and an integrated understanding of operational activity during business as usual and emergencies. Now is the time to be more connected than ever, protecting each other the best we can, and guaranteeing a more secure future for everybody.
About the author: As a senior police officer, Iain Chorlton worked with a range of stakeholders providing counter terrorist guidance for public and private sector partners and event and crowded place protective security advice. Amulet recruited him to lead Project Blueprint.
For more about Project Blueprint, visit the Amulet website.
