Honeywell GM: nextgen borders security needed

Stan Beer
Wednesday, 19 October 2005 19:45

Business IT - Security

Honeywell Australia's boss told attendees at the Smart Borders Conference in Sydney yesterday that the nation's current security needs could only be met by a new generation of integrated systems.

Paul Bardon, the general manager for Honeywell in Australia, told the gathering of key border agencies and private sector stakeholders that high-end, mission-critical security requires a complete re-think of the term 'integrated systems'.

'To date, many so-called integrated systems have been little more than a number of disparate sub-systems with separate operator interfaces housed in the same control room,' Bardon said. 'In this scenario, the control room operator is in fact the integrator.'

Bardon said that the new generation of integrated security management systems required independent security sub-systems to be tied together at the physical level through a common communications infrastructure computer network.

Examples of security sub-systems in this context include access control, intrusion detection, surveillance, photo identification, visitor management, fire detection and building control.

'Not only does this make the system easier to manage, but most importantly, it enables the system to act intelligently,' Bardon said. 'For example, video need only be recorded when an intrusion is detected, rather than recording an endless loop that requires constant human monitoring or manual scanning to locate a specific frame.'

Under the new generation of management systems, the various sub-systems would be connected at the operational level by a single management interface making it much easier for the control room operator to monitor and manage. In this scenario, the operator sees a single set of graphics integrated with a single alarm management process and data from a single authoritative source.

Bardon cited several examples of this model in action during his address to the Smart Borders conference, including security systems Honeywell installed for Sydney Airport Corp, Australian Parliament House and the Queensland Department of Corrective Services.

He also cautioned against putting too much emphasis on recent advances in technology as a means of addressing the challenge to develop and implement a national system of intelligent border security technologies and processes.

'While technology advances such as smart cards, intelligent video and biometric credentials offer greater security and response capability, technology alone is not the answer to the challenge we currently face,' Bardon said. 'Responding to security threats requires complex co-ordination between understanding your vulnerabilities, improving your internal processes and choosing technology appropriate to your security goals.'