Let us begin by defining what this means in the world of security operations. In our practice, it is the process of observing someone's behaviour and analyzing it for indicators of adversarial modes of operations. 

In addition, especially trained officers would look at appearance, accompanying people, documents (if possible), verbal and other non-verbal cues, and conduct a security-driven interview (if allowed by regulations). All of the information thus assembled in a course of 5 sec to 1:30 min is analyzed relative to the operational environment or context in which the process is occurring. In the end, a qualified security officer will reach a simple decision: threat or no threat. Wait, you can ask, where does the racial / ethnic / religious profiling come into play? It does not.

Just came across an article in LA Times entitled "Randomizers' could ward off airport profiling accusations" stating that one of the reasons for deploying them "is so TSA officers can't be accused of profiling passengers when they direct some fliers to a line for regular screening and others to a line for a faster, less-intrusive search". This is peculiar, I thought.

In our practice, we often encounter situations when clients ask questions about measuring 'security value' or whether this or that security solution works. How does one evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of security operations? How does one determine which solutions to choose from? 

In our answers, or when we design and implement security solutions, we base our approach  on the Outcome-Based model -- almost everything can be supported by data or evidence if you know what questions to ask and how to engineer performance measurements.

In a rapidly changing operational environment when new threats emerge on a regular basis, the existing prescriptive models can no longer provide the expected security answers. In an outcome-based approach to security, while the established objectives remain the same a security program has enough flexibility and adaptability to deal with most of emerging challenges.
  
CHI Security Senior Associate, Peter Stewart, has prepared a short overview of what an Outcome-Based Approach is all about (see pdf below). Feel free to contact us if you have more questions.

This philosophical question continues to occupy the minds of many security professionals and interested commentators. The answer, in most cases, is somewhere in the middle but this team believes that in a truly proactive security system Human Factor should-be the determining element.

While there are many security threats and risks outside, the reality is that we mostly fear those coming from other humans. In simple terms, this inherent mistrust in other humans, whether as risk factors or performers, is what causes us to look for technology as a solution. The problem of course is that humans in general (and evil-doers in particular) are quite inventive in circumventing various static barriers put in their way, be it a sensor-wired wall, a sophisticated X-ray machine or biometric devices (not to mention another apparent problem -- these 'solutions' have humans attached to operate them, oops). In reality, most security systems we witness today are passive and inefficient. They perform 'law enforcement' duties (e.g. CCTVs -- a post-event information collection), are not flexible to deal with evolving threats and in many cases contribute to the 'security theatre' perception.