Terror increases security awareness

Thursday, March 7, 2002 | 11:07 a.m.

Home and office security systems were big business well before terrorists captured headlines and became a fear factor last year, industry experts say.

"This has always been a busy business," said Allen Fritts, president of the Security Industry Association, Alexandria, Va., sponsor of the International Security Conference and Exposition, which wraps up today at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

"You would have seen a similar audience for this show prior to 9-11," Fritts said. "What happened hasn't made the show any larger."

But what last September's terrorist attacks may have done is make security purchases a higher priority for consumers.

"I think people are more willing to spend the money (on security systems)," said Amy Goodwin of Phoenix-based Hanchett Entry Systems Inc., one of the 600 exhibitors showing products at the ISC Expo-West trade show. "They're more of an essential purchase."

Hanchett is showing a line of electric strikes, locking devices that are activated by computer chips embedded in plastic shields the size of a credit card. Fritts said access-control devices, like electric strikes, and closed-circuit television monitoring systems were the hottest products at this year's show.

Dozens of exhibitors showed TV monitoring systems with a number of variations. Some project images that can be monitored through dedicated telephone lines or over the Internet. Others are simple single-camera systems that can be viewed or taped from a remote control center.

Others are more elaborate, like Taiwan-based Merit Li-Lin Corp.'s digital closed-circuit monitoring system, a new product shown at this year's show.

Merit Li-Lin USA Corp. general manager Janet Zheng was showing a system capable of accepting the input of up to 16 cameras and recording images on digital video discs. Zheng said depending on the resolution and the number of fields per second recorded, a single disc could store up to a week of images.

Components for monitoring systems represented a high percentage of the exhibits at the show, with cameras of all shapes and sizes, lenses with wide angles or telephoto views, cable and computer hardware and taping and storage devices of all kinds displayed.

Casino security tours to see eye-in-the-sky surveillance systems that monitor customers, employees and areas with an abundance of cash were a part of the three-day event, attended by more than 10,000 people.

The show also had 60 seminars with topics ranging from biometric security applications to kidnap, ransom and extortion response. Keynote speaker James Lee Witt, the director of the Federal Emergency Management Administration in the Clinton administration, discussed government response to emergencies.

The ISC Expo-West serves industry representatives west of the Mississippi. A similar event for industry in the East is scheduled in Orlando, Fla., in August. The western show will return to Las Vegas in late March next year.