Top 10 Ways To Tell If Security Robots Are Right for You

May 31, 2020
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You have likely seen them patrolling or stationed around town – at shopping centers, movie theatres, hospitals, corporate campuses, gas stations, parking garages, airports, etc. – but maybe you have continued to tell yourself and those you report to that Autonomous Security Robots would not be a good fit for your site. The timing has just never been right, or you feel your CEO might not think they are a culture fit or perhaps there is a concern that employees might be worried about Robots coming to take their jobs. These are common initial concerns, but if you answer “yes” to any of these following ten (10) questions, it may finally be time to deploy Autonomous Security Robots… or at least explore the possibilities.

#1 Do you have problems with criminal vagrancy or dangerous loiterers at any of your sites?

Homelessness is at an all-time high throughout the US, especially in urban environments. It is disrupting normal business operations and impacting the safety of guests, patrons, residents, employees, tenants and patients alike. Autonomous Security Robots may very well be one of the most effective deterrents to criminal vagrancy or extended loitering available today. There is an adjustable repetitive patrol sound, an illuminating strobe effect, automatic message broadcasting when people are detected, and 360-degree recorded HD video 24/7.

In some instances, law enforcement agencies are not able to take any sort of action to remove a residentially challenged individual from a site. Contract security personnel may even fear for their safety in dealing with vagrants struggling with mental health disorders or they may not be allowed to physically remove an individual due to liability concerns and policies in place from their employer. Autonomous Security Robots provide a unique solution by serving as an authoritative communication medium that removes the need for security personnel and/or law enforcement to have to physically interact with a potentially dangerous individual.

#2 Can you envision any advantages of having thermal imaging and human heat signature scanning and anomaly alerting for your current Security Program?

In our current societal state, being able to read the heat signature coming off of any human is critical information. These machines can potentially “see in the dark” and detect a person in a pitch-black area who has maybe fallen down due to a medical emergency. These Robots have the capability of detecting someone hiding in a poorly lit area setting up camp for the night or using your site as a place for illicit drug use. It is likely beneficial for any security program to gain the ability to see things the human eye simply cannot and detect thermal anomalies a human simply cannot recognize. Temperature thresholds can be set, and designated security team members can receive images of a thermal anomaly, a video clip, location on a map and a time stamp. This anomaly can be sent to a user of the web-based software interface as an email alert, a text, a phone call or in the software itself as an alert notification.

#3 Are you experiencing vandalism or theft and nothing you try seems to provide a true solution?

Whether it is vehicle break-ins, burglaries, petty theft, graffiti or destruction of property, each of these could impact business continuity, the guest-patron-patient experience and/or employees feeling safe at work. If you have just continued to increase human patrol or dedicate more coverage to a particular problem area, but new problem areas arise, or your incidents of this type just continue overall, it may be time to try a potential new solution.

Autonomous Security Robots have been reported to cut crime anywhere from 50% to nearly 100% at some client sites. These machines are highly visible and are more noticeable than a human on foot in any lighting condition. Those that break the law do not want to be caught on eye-level, HD, daylight/lowlight video committing a crime. They usually do not know exactly what these Robots are capable of capturing about them, and it is at least partially that mystery that allows these machines to be such an effective deterrent.

#4 Are you looking for the next cutting-edge technology to enhance your Workplace Violence Prevention (WVP) program?

You may have state of the art security technology in place in all facets of your global security program—security cameras, access control and visitor management systems, social media monitoring, executive travel safety situational awareness, duty of care tools, or even an impressive Global Security Operations Center (GSOC) – but you have yet to see the need to incorporate Autonomous Security Robots.

Imagine someone has a hostile exit interview. They make threats to the HR Manager that has just terminated their employment as well as their direct supervisor responsible for the decision. They are escorted out of the building by a member of the physical security team. You immediately deactivate their badge and add them to your “Be on the Lookout” (BOLO) list and post it to the bulletin board for your on-site team to see. Maybe you go a step further and seek out their social media accounts and begin monitoring their public-facing posts to understand their threat level to your organization. You feel you have done enough. Your team is now “on the lookout” via CCTV and ready to react if this individual ever returns.

Autonomous Security Robots (ASR’s) provide even greater enhancements to the monitoring of this individual’s activity at any of your sites. Through the web-based user interface, you can not only capture a high definition, eye-level facial recognition image of this disgruntled former employee, but their image can also be immediately flagged with a reason that they are a BOLO. Now, you have powerful AI alerting with, in some cases, greater than 90% similarity ratio matching even when this individual is wearing a mask or has made a change to their appearance, like facial hair for instance.

With ASR’s you can capture this individual’s license plate and have your machines looking for that license plate number forever, providing alerts that this threat is back on the property potentially before they even exit their vehicle. You can also capture their cell phone device name from one ASR as they exit the building, and have all of your other ASRs red-alerting in a 492 foot radius that this potentially dangerous individual is attempting to enter any of your sites where you have Autonomous Security Robots deployed.

#5 Do you find that your team is bogged down with Parking Enforcement issues and data gathering?

Is your team walking or driving around jotting down suspicious license plates with a pen and note pad or sporadically capturing license plates of cars with a manual license plate reader? Are you continuously having to remind your employees not to park in your designated guest parking spots? Is your team constantly promoting parking policies to drivers, providing courtesy notices or even ticketing or towing vehicles, but the policy violations never seem to subside? Do you feel this time could be better spent by your security team?

This is all too common for physical security teams responsible for parking enforcement. With Autonomous Security Robots, you are gaining 360-degree Automatic License Plate Recognition (ALPR) without the need for human patrol or human data gathering. The Robots and AI are providing much more advanced data processing, keeping track of how long each vehicle has been parked in a particular area and whether that vehicle has committed a parking violation – 24-hour violations, 4-hour time limit violations for electric vehicle charge stations, or employees in visitor parking. The ASR is providing your team with real time alerts via email, text or web-based software notifications including location coordinates, a time stamp, a zoomable image of the vehicle make and model and even a video clip so you can potentially see who is getting in and out of a vehicle of interest.

#6 Would it be more ideal to have even greater security patrol coverage and/or physical presence with your current resources?

In today’s economy, security teams are being forced to find cost efficiencies or to “do more with less,,” without sacrificing safety and security and possibly even improving their overall security posture. Autonomous Security Robots can patrol hundreds of miles per week, capturing data about threats and deterring with a repetitive patrol sound, automatically broadcasting messages upon people detections and radiating a strobe effect that can be seen from over 1,000 feet away. These machines allow a web-based software user to have eyes with 360 degree eye-level recorded HD video, ears with Live Audio, wheels on the ground and voice with two-way intercom using the human’s voice or pre-recorded broadcast messages using the Robot’s voice… and they can do so remotely under any stay-at-home orders that may be in place.

#7 Would it be helpful for anyone from your team to hear streaming live audio from a Robot during an incident where only the Robot could physically be present?

It could be a physical altercation, an argument, an act of vandalism, or someone being harassed on their way to their vehicle. Whatever the incident may be, the ability for any ASR user to be a lot more places at once and hear exactly what is going on is highly valuable for any security program. There could be critical audio witnessed by a security professional remotely monitoring a situation through an Autonomous Security Robot. Audio could be interpreted and that particular security team member could provide valuable intervention in real-time either using their own voice by triggering an intercom call or using the Robot’s voice in the form of a pre-recorded message broadcasted over the ASR’s loudspeaker, or even by triggering the local alarm on the Robot (similar to a car alarm). Like with any security program, this capability becomes much more meaningful if an incident ever occurs and the proper protocol takes place.

#8 Would it be better to have greater flagging capabilities and real-time alerting about Persons of Interest (POI’s) who have been banned or had their access denied from any site location?

Autonomous Security Robots (ASR’s) and their included AI software can provide for even greater flagging capabilities along with real-time alerting for Persons of Interest (POI). Whether these are just suspicious individuals dwelling at a particular site, in vehicle or on foot, or if they are individuals that have clearly crossed the line in the past and have been banned from ever returning, ASR’s can red alert security teams if any of these individuals return to site by detecting their face, their cell phone device name or their license plate number. This can occur from up to a 492-foot radius as the machine patrols or provide a digital perimeter protecting every ingress and egress location with a stationary machine.

#9 Could your security program benefit from having greater eye-level recorded surveillance for positive ID capture and evidence gathering?

Many security programs only have CCTV that is capturing an aerial perspective of any surveilled area. This is great for capturing the scene as a whole of any particular incident, but in many cases, the aerial footage of the shoulders or the top of the head of persons committing a crime or attempting to report a fraudulent slip and fall claim is not sufficient enough to prove someone’s identity, the reason for a slip and fall or for positive ID capture. With high definition, eye-level video recorded 24/7 by an ASR, detecting in both daylight and lowlight conditions, you are filling in those potential blind spots of surveillance coverage and it is constantly on the move for patrolling ASR’s. You are recording powerful video in 360 degrees 24/7 that can potentially be used as prosecuting evidence if ever needed.

#10 Would it be of value for your Security team to have a Robot continuously scanning license plate numbers in 360 degrees, so that persons of interest could be flagged either in real time or searched and flagged at a later date?

Aside from the many advantages Automatic License Plate Recognition (ALPR) brings to any security program for Workplace Violence Prevention (WVP), these Robots are also constantly recording license plates 24/7, potentially capturing hundreds of license plates per day and thousands of license plates per week. Persons of Interest (POI’s) can be immediately detected by security teams and they may have historical video clips of these individuals getting in and out of a particular vehicle and what that vehicle looks like. This becomes a searchable and exportable database that prove to provide critical information for an investigation on a later date.

If you’ve just learned that it may finally be time to deploy Autonomous Security Robots, let’s set up a demo discussion so we can begin addressing any issues you may be facing today!

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