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CEO, Purple WiFi

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With over 15 years experience working in technology led or enabled businesses, Gavin has a deep understanding of the impact of technology on the bottom line of an organisation. Having recently sold his last business, Applied Language Solutions, a global language technology and services business, he set up So Purple Group with the prime focus on building an enterprise guest WiFi system that was end user friendly.
April 17, 2015

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Whitepaper: Enhancing security, resilience and efficiency across a range of industries

How Wearable Tech Can Help Security Professionals

As the world of wearable technology develops, various industries are adapting to the changes and using it to transform their operations.

The health and fitness industry, motoring and retail industry are already embracing the opportunities of this emerging breed of tech and as time goes on more sectors will reap the rewards.

Drawing on real-time data the security industry is one that really has the potential to benefit – not least in the following ways.

Access control

For years companies have relied on lanyards, swipe cards, pin codes and ID badges to allow access in and out of buildings. In recent years some companies have implemented Bluetooth-enabled tracking tags for use in access-control environments.

The next step, however, is to break away from physical access devices and adopt wearable technology built into clothing, glasses or phone which automatically grants access upon approach.

wearable tech ring

Massachusetts-based Ring Theory makes rings that provide door acccess

It’s also likely that over the next few years we’ll increasingly unlock our front doors, cars and offices using wearable devices. We may also get access to gigs, sports matches and other ticketed events through this technology.

For security professionals this type of access doesn’t necessarily mean they are suddenly out of a job. Instead it allows greater understanding of building entrants, the ability to track their movement within the building and greater possibilities for improving crowd control.

Monitoring capabilities

Monitoring capabilities are the key element to security solutions. Wearables can extract additional information about the user and the environment they are in, resulting in improved knowledge. Customizing the technology to your needs will ensure optimum security and potentially offer a new level of security that you haven’t had before.

Being able to monitor this data will allow you to understand and evaluate surveillance more effectively. With wearable technology you will be able to see exactly where all of your employees are within the building and even outside of the building. You will be able to locate all members of the public within a public event and therefore improve your levels of surveillance.

Real-time information

It’s real time information like this that will really help to transform the security industry as we know it. No longer will you solely rely on video surveillance, instead you will have the opportunity to track individuals to their exact location at any given time.

Information about a person’s parameters will be collected and transmitted to the cloud enabling instant decisions to be made. Implementing systems such as this will ensure greater accuracy and faster reaction times.

Preventative security will also be improved. Geo-fencing has been widely used among the Healthcare industries to ensure safety and security of elderly patients.

As wearable technology develops this will help to determine exactly who has stepped outside of the geofenced area, where they live and information about their healthcare needs. Information like this will be crucial to offering a higher level of security.

Privacy

Wearable technology and privacy go hand in hand. The increase of wearables will continue to transform the security industry in the future so it is essential to get the right privacy processes in place.

Ensuring that you set up the correct parameters, sharing options and data ownership settings initially will result in a safe, reliable result.

Suffice to say in a world of ever smaller and more connected technologies, we can utilise wearables to not only simplify our long list of security tasks, but also make our environments safer.

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