Featured Article Archives - Page 13 of 25

Deciding How To Start Your Career In Close Protection

Who, when initially looking for a close protection course, tried to find the cheapest course and quickest route possible to your badge? Who researched their training provider and checked out all the credentials and qualifications of their instructors?

Who doesn’t intend to do any other training until they find at least some work to pay back their initial training costs? Who, reading this, has attended an ‘accredited’ training course but has actually never yet done a day’s work as a designated protection officer? I could go on, but well… you get the picture!

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The Tour Security Venue Security Interface

Starting out, I was one of the guys that didn’t take the job too serious. However, it was while working in the field, I felt my “calling,” and noticed that here was an opportunity for me to grow in the industry and use my position and access to branch out to create a bigger platform for myself. One thing I can say is as it relates to touring, when musical acts come to town, I see them face the same challenges time and again. As such, I thought it might be appropriate to share some insights that may make life a bit smoother for the next individual or team.

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Tried and Tested: Can Open Source Boost CCTV into the 21st Century?

With funding from the UK’s innovation agency, Innovate UK, Zircon Software Ltd is working to find out whether security surveillance systems and associated analytics can work in a station environment without disrupting the rail network. To achieve this, Zircon are planning to utilise advanced video analytics, taking functional open source Machine Learning libraries wrapped in […]

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Training for Survival

“The training is necessary because of the world we live in and the kinds of issues our students face,’’ said Wilson, who travels around the entire county to help students. “We deal with emotional, physical and psychological trauma. You’re always wondering if it’s going to be you or your school next.”

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K9 in Private Protective Services

Since I am often employed as the agent in charge (AIC), you generally are assigned to the principal and the duties don’t lend themselves to be the K9 handler. You have a choice, either work the principal of work the K9, but rarely can you do both. However, that doesn’t mean there is not considerable opportunities for K9s and handlers in protective services.

Typically, these dogs fall into one or two categories. There are dogs that are single-purpose dogs, meaning they have one task they perform. While others are dual-purpose, meaning they are trained to perform a variety of tasks. The three biggest categories that they fall into are Apprehension, Detection and Search & Rescue.

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Kidnap and Ransom for the Protection Professional

This article is offered to enhance understanding of the first key stages of a kidnap and ransom negotiation and your role in the event the unthinkable happens.

Whether an Executive Protection officer or security advisor for a High Net Worth client and family you should prepare to deal with the early stages of a kidnapping.

It may happen when you are not even responsible for the client and least able to prevent it – when your client is alone and most vulnerable.

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Fit for Purpose – Mindset, Ideas, and Planning Adventure series P1

With the majority of people now living and working in built up, artificial environments, it is now even more prevalent to proactively seek out opportunities to maximise time in natural surroundings and include adventurous activity frequently. As security professionals we can be away for long periods and do less than favourable hours; having an outlet that allows us to disconnect and recharge our batteries is absolutely essential. Analyse your own unique situation, look to log a typical week and note down the hours you are inside at work and separately in your own time, log the time you spend exercising (at whatever intensity, a walk to the shops is included) and finally the time spent doing adventurous activities outside of a gym environment. The results will highlight where you can make positive changes or confirm a good indoor/outdoor balance.

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French medics need bodyguards for 300 metre commute after spike in violent attacks

The capital’s iconic station is just 300 meters from the hospital, yet employees do not feel safe enough to make the journey on foot alone between the hours of 6pm and 10pm.

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How to be Cyber Safe When on Public WiFi

Connecting your device to the World Wide Web isn’t an issue when you’re at your place. It’s relatively safe, simple to do, and free of crowded traffic. When you leave the safety of your home to a public area, the story changes. When you connect to public Wi-Fi in different places, making certain you can still connect with people, read online news, and work remotely, are you aware of the risks?

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Keeping Your Edge – Flowers For the Living

regret that comes from knowing that you could have done more to support a person in life, even if just by offering a kind word or two. Some might think a topic like this has no place in an Alpha industry like Close Protection but consider that a large part of our ranks are pulled from both law enforcement and the military. We can all see how helpful positive reinforcement has been for those stressful careers.

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Industry News At A Glance March 2020

We cast our eye over the main stories impacting the security industry. Here’s what’s appeared on the radar since the last issue.

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Global Risk RoundUp – March 2020

About Drum Cussac, a GardaWorld company
Because we put your people first, we’ve built cutting-edge risk and security which keeps up with the pace of change. The only risk and security platform to feature monthly updates, GlobalRiskManager is purpose built to be future-proof and can seamlessly integrate with your own systems. This, combined with over 20 years’ of industry knowledge and a team of in-house security experts, provides you with a comprehensive end-to-end risk and security solution – done your way.

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What to Do about School Shootings?

As security professionals, we must not allow ourselves to be caught up in either politics or hysteria. Our approach must reflect what we have been trained to do: dispassionately apply sound security principles to this security threat.

After every such event, the blame begins. Some blame the National Rifle Association (NRA), gun owners in general, and Donald Trump in particular, and call for banning firearms, or at least banning AR-15-type rifles. Others blame video games, violent movies, the culture, or the Kardashians. And the political games continue.

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The Gray Man Concept. Are You Getting it Wrong?

We now see companies capitalizing on this idea, by making different lines of equipment and bags that tout themselves as being “covert” or “discrete”. I am of the belief that if you are wearing clothing that advertises itself as either of these things, it’s anything but.

Truly experienced law enforcement, military and security professionals can spot each other a mile away. Often the giveaways are in the clothing and personal accessories that we choose. Watches, shoes and belts are accessories that are often over looked by those attempting to be “Gray”. Wearing Soloman’s or Merrel’s, a Suunto/Garmin/Pathfinder watch and an Ares Gear/511, or another tactical belt is not being gray. Each of those accessories, gives up information about you, that you say you are trying to conceal.

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The Mentality of the Modern Protector

Over 30 years ago, when I left a failing white-Collar industry in a failing economy in Texas, I did what many in my predicament did. I entered the contract security industry at near minimum wage. What I did that many others did not, was survive in the industry long enough to out earn annually what I was earning in my previous profession.

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THE NEW Open Source Intelligence

We all hear about this OSINT malarkey but searching the Internet for information is much much more than just dropping a couple of search terms into Google.

There are many different search engines out there and using these various systems, combined with how you actually search for phrases, should bring you the results you are after.

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The Rise in the Use of CCTV in Court Proceedings

An estimated 5.9 million CCTV cameras were in operation throughout the UK in 2016, making the British public one of the most surveilled in the world. Only Beijing has more CCTV cameras than London, where the average person will be recorded on camera 300 times in one day.

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Global Risk RoundUp – Feb 2020

Our Global Risk partners, Drum Cussac, provide in-depth analysis of global risks via in-house experts, cutting edge technology and through a comprehensive global source network. Here is your summary of the incidents you need to know about from the last 30 days.

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Head on a Swivel

Catchphrases are good to identify an action; they’re not good in obtaining the Skill of that action. The foundation of the proverbial “head on a swivel” is Situational Awareness.
And just like Head on a swivel, “situational awareness” is a widely used phrase but not a widely understood Skill. It takes time for one to master and understand two phrases, and two actions

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Fit for Purpose – Motivation and Mindset

The struggle will be experienced by every single one of us, at differing intensities, durations and regularities; it is one of the only true guarantees in life.

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