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Visitors’ preference of a mall and willingness to come back time and again greatly depend on whether they feel a sense of safety while they are in the mall or not. Being publicly accessible, security operations at malls do not steer far from public security operations. For example, a surge in the number of visitors pertaining to festivities, holidays, and events poses risks of unrest and accidents.
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The on-ground security personnel are trained and deployed to tackle any such situations. But the resources continually face overloads and delays. Best approach to securing a mall’s premises is to strengthen the existing processes. Additionally, it is to increase the presence of smart security solutions and technology plays an immense role in this. In order to stabilise the security infrastructure, stable AI-powered technology that undergoes regular advancements is crucial.
Security at malls: Challenges
Shoplifting
Shoplifting remains one of the primary sources of losses to shopping malls and the retailers that operate within them. In turn, such incidents risk loss of credibility and valuable resources, and may also result in property damages. It can be a challenging task to manually identify a frequent defaulter out of the number of visitors that malls record every day. Also, creating and maintaining a physical stoplist can be a cumbersome task subject to human errors. These often leads to false convictions of innocent visitors, afflicting the customer experience. Heavy investments in technology to counter organised retail crimes (ORC) are projected in the next 5 years.
Break-ins and Vandalism
At any given time, a shopping mall hosts a considerable amount of visitors, visiting for recreation, entertainment, dining, and socialising. With a regular flow of visitors, malls can be vulnerable to vandalism, attacks, and break-ins. This increases the risks of social hazards, aggravated clashes, and damage to valuable resources, posing a great risk to the visitors’ well-being. Incidents like these are for the mall’s security department to attend to.
Missing family members
Cases of missing children are seldom recorded on the premises of a mall. The security is always on their toes, especially during rush hours, like weekends, festivities, or social events, for immediate redressal when such incidents are encountered. However, the staff has to rely on messages from the family, making verbal announcements of the features of the missing person, and wait till they receive a cue on the whereabouts. This increases the action time and limits the security staff’s scope of control.
Unauthorised access to restricted areas
An unauthorised person gaining access to the restricted areas within a mall, for example, the control room, server headquarters, etc., can result in thefts and security emergencies from access breaches. It can rapidly accelerate to heavy losses in thefts, operational obstruction, and property damage. Gaining unauthorised access to sensitive premises also risks access to sensitive data, network, and cloud resources, causing a breach of visitors’ data given to the mall authorities in good faith.
Countering Prominent Challenges with Reliable Technology: Facial Recognition Systems (FRS)
The factors that challenge the security operations at a shopping mall can be countered by developing a strong foundation of advanced technology and smart solutions. Facial recognition enables achieving a higher quality of security operations that remain unabated by overloads and evolving security threats.
Capabilities of Facial Recognition Systems
 Facial recognition systems (FRS) is a breakthrough technology that exhibits unique capabilities to uplift the security of any premises.
- It is foolproof
According to the recent studies by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the standardising institution for technological advancements, facial recognition technology (FRT) has come to achieve 99% accuracy. This means that the chances of error are near zero. FRT is facilitating an extremely accurate assessment and verification of individuals scanned under an FRS-enabled camera. The advanced algorithms that FRS runs on are trained to discern synthetic identities and differentiate an actual person from an image. The powerful feature of liveness detection detects access breaches on account of identity theft, raises alerts for the security personnel’s notice, and blocks access to the protected area.
- It is pervasive
Over the past decade, facial recognition technology has proved to be a powerful solution to cater to the complex security requirements of diverse units. And shopping malls are no exception. FRS is easily integrated into the existing security infrastructure to strengthen the incident detection and response protocols. Mall authorities can simply continue to use the existing technical resources and augment the facility’s security operations using FRS by expanding the capabilities of its video management system (VMS).
- It is quick
FRS accurately completes the whole identification process within seconds. It traces previous visit records and if an individual belongs to the stop-list, highlights frequent defaulters. Instant alerts are raised for the security personnel. They are informed of the presence of a person of concern within the premises of the mall. This speeds up the response process, making it more efficient.
Transforming Security at Shopping Malls
The footprint of AI and technology is rising as a virtue of an exponential increase in investments to elevate the security infrastructure at shopping malls. The facial biometrics market is projected to grow to USD 24.3 billion by 2032. This projection vouches for the vast adaptability and impeccable advancements that facial recognition technology has to present for the future. Mall authorities are always looking for reliable solutions that help increase visitors’ trust in the premises’ security, making them want to visit again. And FRS can prove to be a radical phenomenon in ensuring so.
“The transformative capabilities of facial recognition make it a powerful security tool for shopping malls. It can be easily integrated into the existing security infrastructure, providing unprecedented support to the mall’s security officials.” Eugenia Marina, Business Development Director, MENA region, RecFaces
“Facial recognition technology revolutionises shopping mall security, providing swift, accurate, and reliable protection. By integrating advanced AI, we enhance safety, deter modern threats, and foster a secure environment, ensuring trust and peace of mind for every shopper.” Oleg Kurochkin, Business Development Director APAC region, RecFaces
“Facial recognition technology elevates mall security to new heights, combining precision and efficiency to safeguard visitors. This advanced AI solution strengthens trust and ensures a secure, seamless shopping experience for all.” Maria Kazhuro, Business Development Director LATAM region, RecFaces.
