Christmas is coming, are you prepared to fight crime?

Christmas, and the increase in retail activity which goes with it, is upon us. If you run a retail business, are you prepared to tackle an increase in crime over the next few months? Preventing crime remains a major concern for all types of retailers. Crimes are not victimless. The impact the skilled, passionate, determined people who make the retail industry so vibrant. The total spend on crime prevention is up again to over £1.9 billion. Understanding threats and ways in which they can be countered is the place we need to start.

Hundreds of millions of people across the world use biometrics every day. Mostly this is in the form of fingerprint or facial recognition on mobile phones. Considering that Apple launched the first biometric fingerprint reader in 2013, the adoption of biometric technology has happened incredibly fast. Yet for the most part, until recently, biometrics has only been used as a virtual key – to unlock a device such as a phone or a laptop. Things are changing though, with the advent of pervasive biometrics which forms part of a flexible toolkit which allows the development of numerous different types of application.

As a business, your most important asset is your people. Keeping track of their experience, capabilities and competencies is difficult through manual systems. Having full access to digital CV’s and qualifications, as well as up to date information on project completion dates allow you to manage the movements of your workforce. All of this is possible if you use a digital onboarding system which is integrated with a biometric access control and time + attendance system.

Artificial intelligence is rapidly being adopted around the world. The most controversial area is the use of AI surveillance tools to monitor and track people. Some schemes are lawful, others clearly violate human rights, and many fall somewhere in the middle, in murky ground. As the market for professional video surveillance is expected to grow from $18.2 billion in 2018 to $19.9 billion this year, AI isn’t going to go away anytime soon.

Manufacturing food and drink is big business in the UK. In 2018 the sector contributed 28.8bn to the economy – the sector is bigger than the automotive & aerospace sectors combined. There are over 30 different sub-sectors ranging from bakeries to gin manufacture through to meat processing and animal feed. All these businesses need a robust security strategy to balance safety, reliability and accuracy. But where do business begin to integrate biometrics, and what benefits does it offer?

Fingerprint readers, facial recognition and iris scans are commonplace on smartphones. We use them every day to control access and authenticate our identity. From digital security to border security, employee ID to national ID, and prison security to airport security, biometric identification is growing rapidly. Since biometrics are an intrinsic part of each human, they are fuelling a growing trend to replace encryption keys, passwords or codes for digital identification and authentication. In this post, we explore whether biometrics will end the use of identity documents?

The world is digitising at break-neck speed. Recent research by IBM suggests 75% of millennials are now comfortable using biometric technology - be it fingerprint logins on our smartphones, facial recognition when we pass through the airport, or biometric-enabled payment methods. Businesses of all sizes are using biometrics to streamline their operations. Let’s have a look at what they have to offer companies who enable their employees to work remotely.

We interviewed our Director Nick Burke and asked him why he joined the Almas team, what he feels the core values of the business are and where he sees the business going in the next five years. Read on to find out more!

George Smithies and Aaron Vousden are two passionate and ambitious Civil Engineers, turned entrepreneurs from Pembrokeshire, South Wales and Anglesey, North Wales respectively. Both are graduates from Cardiff University and share a joint passion to revolutionise the construction industry through their digital platform innDex, helping bring automation and transparency to the forefront of construction.