Sacred and Secure
How to maintain openness and accessibility, and offer security and safety
- By Padma Duvvuri
- Aug 02, 2021
When people think of
a House of Worship
(HoW) what may
first come to mind
is a solemn sanctuary
of welcome and refuge. Churches,
mosques, synagogues, temples and other
places of worship are built on the premise
of openness and accessibility, peace and
community.
As crime and targeted violence increases
in almost every other aspect of
life, Houses of Worship have unfortunately
not been spared. According to the
Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security
Agency (CISA), there has been a “discernible
increase in the number of [targeted
violence] incidents between 2015 and
2019” at houses of worship. Of these attacks,
“54%... were an armed assault of
some kind, including shootings, edged
weapons and vehicular assaults.”1 In 2019
alone, HoW’s experienced extreme attacks
world-wide:
- March 2019: Australian man opened fire
on worshipers in two mosques in Christchurch,
New Zealand, killing 50 people
- April 2019: Poway, California, synagogue
shooting results in 1 death and 3 injuries
- April 2019: Easter Sunday explosions in
churches and hotels in Sri Lanka kill more
than 250 people, including 45 children
In protecting HoW’s, security professionals
and congregants face a unique dilemma:
how to maintain openness and accessibility
while still ensuring security and
safety. While the targeted violent attacks
on Houses of Worship are what make the
news, they face a range of incidents from
loitering, graffiti, and vandalism, all the
way to life-threatening violence.
To help address these security concerns
a variety of checklists are available, many
of which provide a holistic approach to
addressing security threats. The general
recommendations are:
- Clearly identify roles and responsibilities
and create a designated security committee
- Conduct a security audit to identify risks
and vulnerabilities
- Create a security plan which includes
proactive physical security, to include
video surveillance, access controls and
weapons screening.
- Since more HoW’s are offering virtual
services, implement cybersecurity protocols
alongside physical security protocols
- Create an emergency crisis plan which
includes procedures on connecting with
local law enforcement and immediate
safety measures should an attack occur
Of these items, new developments in
AI technology are helping to assist with
physical security measures at houses of
worship.
A large Hindu faith based organization
explored such technology as it dissected
incidents occurring in other places
of worship around the world, and worked
to ensure the safety of their own centers.
This organization has more than 3800
centers worldwide, with mandirs (temples)
ranging in size from the smallest accommodating
up to 50 families, to the largest
locations, which can accommodate 500+
families.
Each type of HoW has its own unique
security needs, and even within an institution
the security requirements of each location
can vary. In this organization, different
sized mandirs face their own unique
challenges. Smaller mandirs tend to have
smaller budgets, which are determined by
the level of donations received, and thus
are more cost-conscious and conservative
in their technology choices.
Larger mandirs often have the means
to test out different technologies and strategies.
In general, the organization has
aimed to provide guidance to all its centers
on which foundational technology to
implement, such as a VMS, so that later,
additional technology can be layered on
and easily integrated.
Many places of worship, including this
organization, have focused on some key
areas of technology as part of their physical
security implementation:
FORENSIC INVESTIGATIONS
Video surveillance cameras are the bulwark
of a robust physical security solution.
Cameras for monitoring perimeters
and people are de rigueur for many
HoW’s. The amount of video obtained
can be significant, so thorough review is
often required to reap the benefits of the
recordings and investigate events.
“Reviewing video is 100% a challenge,”
said Dixit Suthar, security administrator
at the organization. “It becomes time-consuming
and cumbersome. A VMS makes
things easier but most lack intelligence like
analytics to help cut down on the viewing
time and hone in on the incident at hand.”
This is especially true for larger locations,
which can have hundreds of cameras
and also many unexpected incidents,
increasing the need for human inspection.
Fortunately, today’s AI analytics are designed to assist with this task. Powerful AI search technology can
detect objects and filter on attributes such as clothing or vehicle
color, direction of movement and regions crossed. Some solutions
even have the ability to track a single person across multiple
cameras. In addition, advanced technology to “squeeze”
long hours of video into shorter clips also reduces manual review
times, often by 10 times.
Implementation of the technology is also important. Some
use cases may require on-premise installations but many of today’s
offerings take advantage of cloud computing to reduce
costs, simplify deployment, and provide flexible, up-to-date models.
Analytics solutions that can leverage existing infrastructure
help reduce the costs of implementation, enabling the technology’s
adoption in more locations.
FACIAL RECOGNITION
Facial recognition technology is a powerful surveillance tool
whose popularity appeared to wane somewhat in mid-2020
as tech companies such as Microsoft, IBM and Amazon put a
moratorium on selling their software to law enforcement. The
technology continues to advance, however, and there’s been a resurgence
of interest in adoption. While there are still concerns
around facial recognition, such as using technology to confirm an
identity of a person – facial detection continues its adoption as it
only strives to recognize an object as a face in an image.
Despite recent developments in machine learning, face recognition
is challenging due to the great variability in head rotation
and tilt, lighting intensity, facial expression, aging, etc. It is somewhat
surprising that today, the main challenges for automatic
recognition remain the same as with those identified 52 years ago
by Woody Bledsoe and coincide with the problem of PIES (poseillumination-
expression-structuring) in face recognition.2
Also, until recently the diversity of the samples used to train
the AI models has been lacking, with white males being falsely
matched less frequently than BIPOC faces and women3. Greater
awareness and expansion of training data will help in correcting
this bias.
Many Houses of Worship continue to explore implementing
face recognition and detection, especially in conjunction with
other security and access controls methods.
WEAPONS DETECTION
“The biggest priority is the threat of weapons, so we’re heavily
focusing on weapons detection,” Suthar said. “Many of their international
locations have metal detectors, with some larger locations
disallowing even mobile phones. One of the challenges of
deploying these universally is the requirement to force people to
use only designated doors and entrances.
“Some mandirs have grand entrances which would have to
be permanently closed if we require congregants to enter only
through a certain set of doors,” Suthar said. “While it would
make temperature checks and facial recognition easier to implement,
accessibility and ability to appreciate the structures get
lost. Post COVID, it’s going to be a challenge across the board
for any place, whether it be a house of worship or office space.”
Camera-based anomaly, suspicious object and weapons detection
solutions may mitigate some of these concerns by identifying
threatening objects while still allowing freer use of the premises.
PEOPLE COUNTING AND OCCUPANCY MANAGEMENT
Many HoW’s still use clickers or iPads to track how many people
have entered and exited their premises. This is another area where
current occupancy management technology can be used to better
understand traffic flows and optimize space use. Using video
from strategically pointed cameras, AI analytics can provide a
unified view on occupancy, use, dwell times, queue lengths and
movement patterns in a designated space.
The software can also detect the same person and de-dupe
the total, ensuring only unique counts are reported. These types
of overlaying technologies can help a congregation control costs
while still providing insights into what is happening in their physical
spaces.
OBJECTS LEFT BEHIND
In an ideal world, houses of worship would have the means to
implement a TSA-level ability to detect objects left behind. In
reality, a spectrum of options is available, from having a policy
that any items left behind are discarded to again leveraging AI
analytics to spot forgotten items.
Even with older image recognition technology, it’s possible to
detect a delta of whether an object has been added or removed
from an image via changes in field of view. Newer AI technology
can take it further, with the use of object detection and the training
of models to recognize the most commonly left-behind items
such as purses and clothing, to more suspicious objects such as
bags and suitcases.
ADDITIONAL TECHNOLOGIES
LPR and smoke and fire detection are some of the other technologies
which can benefit from camera-based analytics. Integration
of these and contextualization with other inputs (such as weather,
etc.) can provide a comprehensive physical security solution.
Whether the HoW is a small parish or a world-renown center, the
ability of today’s technology to scale to a venue’s needs makes it
both appealing and affordable.
While HoW’s worldwide must now face the unfortunate reality
that they are not immune to crime or acts of violence, there are
now technology solutions which can augment traditional security
practices to help manage and mitigate physical security concerns.
Being able to proactively manage and monitor a space while also
quickly investigating incidents can help keep these important institutions
open and safe to all who wish to enjoy them.
This article originally appeared in the July / August 2021 issue of Security Today.