Anti-terrorism measures at stadiums need a closer look, writes Murray Stott.
The countdown has begun to the time when stadiums and other venues hosting large international events will be required to assure stakeholders they have the very best digital control systems in place to safeguard against a terror attack, et al. Facial recognition entry systems could become as ubiquitous as post 9/11 baggage screening at airports.
It's pure complacency to do nothing on the basis New Zealand is a friendly place and hasn't upset too many players on the global stage.
Our strategic alliances, treaties and friendships may draw hitherto unwanted attention. Further, it is not always an event host country extremists attack, as evidenced by the Munich massacre of 1972 when 11 Israeli Olympic team members and a German policeman were killed by the so-called Palestinian Black September Group.
While last week's Paris attacks had specificity, the US State Department has recorded more than 700 global terrorist actions since 1961, equating on average to one a month over 53 years.
A recently published list of New Zealand ''soft targets'' with little security but considered possible terror targets featured Eden Park at the top and Dunedin's Octagon at No 7. As we are soon to jointly host with Australia the Cricket World Cup, with teams from Afghanistan and Pakistan entered and an aggregate TV global audience of a billion viewers predicted, we cannot let complacency become contagious. Deranged obsessives are at present allowed enough freedom to kill, as we sadly witnessed recently in Sydney; even here a convicted murderer can fly off to Rio for a few days in the sun. Hence our security systems, checks and balances need work.
European football hooliganism is now largely contained with the assistance of digital management systems and facial recognition for controlled entry to venues.
And while Eden Park does have a digital management system, I understand the Eden Park Trust Board initially declined facial recognition systems on the basis of cost and that it was considered too intrusive for our passive culture. Now, however, at a time when the Government pointed to clear and present danger in legislating to enable our security services to carry out 48-hour surveillance without a warrant; and, when the IRD has in place voice recognition software on callers to their phone lines ... the ''too intrusive ''objection is nullified.
Auckland Mayor Len Brown, meanwhile, has insisted on facial entry recognition for Sky City, as a way of controlling problem gambling. His support for the convention centre deal is contingent on its installation, among other matters.
Facial recognition systems' best algorithm now delivers 94% accuracy from 1.5 million subjects' faces and 3-D imagery captures a subject's skull, overcoming previous issues of light and angulation variability.
Facial-recognition entry was deployed at the Olympics in China 2008 and London 2012.
And for the 2014 Soccer World Cup, Brazilian police used Robocop-style glasses with facial recognition able to scan the crowds. Just one set of these glasses (used by US Navy Seals) can capture 400 facial images per second, comparing biometric markers from a database of 15 million persons of interest. Here in God's Own, where we appear to grossly underestimate building costs of stadiums and convention centres, such vital systems are neither budgeted for nor installed. Following the $245 million government funding for the Eden Park's rebuild, the authorities still went cap-in-hand to the local ratepayers for the shortfall of $38 million, as planners forgot to include in their initial costs the digital management system (facial recognition excluded), turnstiles and the big screens.
Dunedin's Forsyth Barr Stadium is devoid of any such digital stadium management/entry system incorporating facial recognition, thus rendering the stadium a more likely target than the Octagon. Management appear to have their fiscal hands full with sorting out this stadium's perennial sound system problems and security is being relegated to a budgetary back seat.
At present, any known deranged, obsessive Islamic extremists or persons of interest, with their facial biometric features recorded by various international intelligence agencies and/police and disseminated by Interpol, would have little problem entering any New Zealand venue where facial recognition systems were not deployed. It is apparent that costs have resulted in delays of our stadiums/venues coming into line with global best-practice on entry security.
Failure to become fully compliant may result in our being excluded from hosting major events in the future and could present a barrier to entry of undue exposure for everyone from stakeholder-patrons, promoters and conference organisers to stadium naming rights sponsors.
Murray Stott is a trademark agent and sponsorship broker.
