SIA News

6 August 2013

The Security Industry Authority has signed a five year, £13 million contract with Tata Consultancy Services Limited.

Following the completion of a tendering process, TCS were assessed to be the most competitive based on the pre-defined evaluation criteria.

The contract is for new systems to support the delivery of the SIA’s future licensing, approval and compliance operations. The new services are planned to commence at the end of June 2014.

SIA Director of Service Delivery Stephen McCormick said: “We are pleased to have agreed and signed a contract with TCS. The new services that TCS will provide will streamline our process making them simpler to use and encourage industry self-service.”

Industry News

We cast our eye over the main stories impacting the security industry, including, Kanye West’s former bodyguard is calling the rapper a “bully” and is threatening to sue for damages after West accused him of breaking a confidentiality agreement.

Industry News

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

Security Industry Association Announces New SIA Women in Security Scholarship Opportunity

“The SIA Women in Security Forum works to grow and retain leaders in the security industry,” said Gloria Salmeron, director of human resources at Brivo and co-chair of the scholarship committee. “With the addition of this new scholarship, we look forward to helping bring opportunities for further education and advancement to as wide a spectrum of people as possible and inviting individuals to participate in the Women in Security Forum.”

Product Review – Ear Hero

Designed by an audiologist, earHero’s speakers are so tiny they will never block your ear canal giving you the ability to literally talk on a separate phone without removing the earHero tactical earpiece from either ear.

You can literally hear whisper level sounds from yards away, while identifying the sounds’ precise location. The earHero tactical headsets have wires so thin and clear, they are virtually undetectable, and the design is so comfortable, you’ll barely know the earpiece is there.

Insecure Smart Houses

They are only of limited relevance today, but as the technologies involved become more widespread and implemented into every facet of life they will only become more prevalent. While it sounds like the stuff of science fiction, these threats exist now and are not going to go away.

For simplicity, we’ll say that a ‘smart’ device is anything which connects to the internet (or a network) and is not intended to be a computer interface. Intended is the key word there, as many of these devices are insecure for the simple reason that they are a computer. The problem is that it is now cheaper and easier to put a general purpose computer into a device and run some software to, for example, turn lights on and off than it is to design a single-purpose lightbulb which also connects to a network.

Turning Habitual Habits into a Positive

Being an instructor for Tony Scotti’s Vehicle Dynamics Institute has forwarded the opportunity to observe how a large section of professionals interact and function from different niches of the industry. Military, transnational EP teams, US based teams, Federal LEO’s or with civilians this theme shows through. Even in the larger training arena the change can be seen as more of the schools are starting to focus on classes or blocks of instruction such as client management and behavioral analysis. The discussion forms are flooded with conversations relating to how to work in a team dynamic. It doesn’t matter if its a 28 day school or a three day school, they will be touching on and teaching these topics.