Security and law enforcement agencies coordinate their Super Bowl game plan
Like the well-known insurance commercial boasts on television, “We know a thing or two because we’ve seen a thing or two.” So does John Gill.
With three decades of experience in domestic and international security, law enforcement and intelligence in both government and the private sector, Gill understands the intricacies of preparing a risk mitigation strategy for gargantuan public events like tomorrow’s Super Bowl 54 to be played at Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium. When the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers kick off the game before more than 80,000 fans, Gill knows that the planning his colleagues endured for Miami’s super moment began when last year’s Super Bowl in Atlanta began.
Gill, who retired from the United States Secret Service after 24 years of service and was also the Chief Security Officer (CSO) at the White House, where he managed and implemented security policies and programs supporting the Executive Office of the President, has moved expertise to the security industry as Vice President of Sales and Business Development at Vidsys, a provider of Converged Security Information Management (CSIM) software platforms used to run operations centers for public sector agencies and leading enterprise organizations globally.
Having overseen security preparation for monumental public events from a past Super Bowl to national political party conventions, Gill has been the man leading Secret Service teams at these venues and appreciates the intense efforts of all involved for Sunday’s big game.
I caught up with Gill this week to get his insights on event security in general and Super Bowl 54 in particular. The following is our conversation.
Steve Lasky: With the Super Bowl coming up on Sunday, you're going to have tens of thousands of people, both attending and thousands around the venue itself; that presents some special concerns. From your perspective, having worked in some large environments as well, in the White House and your long service with the Secret Service, how do you assess an event like the Super Bowl, and given the threat matrix in play today around the world, what are your expectations and what is your assessments?
John Gill: You're right, there really is no other event that carries quite the significance as the Super Bowl. It's an annual iconic sports event that takes in viewers and participants from all over the world, and that being the case, it presents a particular security challenge. Because it's such an iconic event, and you referred to the need for security planners to be able to take into account the current climate that we're operating under in terms of international geopolitics, so that, in addition to normal security concerns and threats, presents a challenge for any security planner.
Fortunately, the Super Bowl has been in Miami several times before, so I know that the planners there have a lot of experience in being able to put a plan into place. I can tell you from personal experience, I was fortunate enough to have been assigned to the Miami field office early in my Secret Service career, so I can personally attest to the tremendous collaboration amongst the state, local, and federal entities that are in that jurisdiction.
Super Bowls have become not just a one-day event, right. They've now become a several-day event, where it's not just the venue itself, but it's many events that happen around the venue, and throughout the city. That absolutely requires a need for public and private security collaboration. The security plan, again, not only has to consider the game day consequences but also, considers the experience that is put into place for several days before the event. So, absolutely, not only sharing amongst the law enforcement entities but also cooperation across the private sector, as well, is very important and critical to a successful plan. The collaboration model is the one that the Secret Service developed over several years, and managing major events of national significance, not least of which would be Super Bowls, but also, inaugurations, the Olympics, Democratic National Conventions, Republican National Conventions. The same type of methodology is used and employed for this particular event.
I remember when I dealt with the folks in Atlanta last year, one of their big pre-Super Bowl planning strategies was they had their entire security team in Minnesota the prior year observing what was happening there. So, how is the pre-event planning for the security teams that'll be working in Miami influenced by what happened in Atlanta this last year and some of the best practices and lessons learned that are going to be put into play?
That's a good point. Planning for the Super Bowl, wherever it's going to happen, usually starts well in advance, usually at least 18 months in advance of game day. Part of that planning does include involvement with the Super Bowl planners from the previous year, and a visit to that particular game, and an understanding of what that particular plan involved so that next year's planners can gain operational wisdom from previous years' events.
The planning involves collaboration across those multiple state, local, and federal entities. Probably, upwards of 45 to 50 separate entities would be involved across that state, local, and federal organizational chart. Speaking of training, it's now become quite routine for there to be tabletop exercises that will take place that involve all of those entities so that they can actually practice their plan, and test it to ensure that everybody knows what their roles and responsibilities are when game day rolls around.
A Super Bowl is certainly a prime example of the public/private partnerships that go on in these secured city environments. Knowing that you're looking at venues that are going to be in play throughout the week and that is far afield from the stadium itself, Secret Service, DHS, local, and state law enforcement all must work together. How do they construct holistic the concentric circles of security theory into a real-life scenario?
It is a concentric circle of threat type of the methodology that's used. It's the same type of methodology that's used at the White House; it's used at the Super Bowl and any other major event. As you get closer to the center, closer to the actual venue, that security plan will account for tidying up to ensure that the threat is realized and mitigated. What security planners will do is put into place a network of people, processes and technology that will be able to help the tech and deter and mitigate threats as they move closer to the venue. Certainly, the private sector plays a big part in that because many of the private sector entities will be within those concentric circles. From a technology standpoint, oftentimes, law enforcement will ask for camera-sharing, for example, to see if they can tap into private-sector cameras in order to be able to observe what's happening in those areas.
On game day, the venue will have enhanced access control in order to control egress into the area around the stadium and the stadium itself. That access control will involve a certain amount of biometrics. Among the types of things that security planners will have in place will be technology such as video analytics that also involves facial recognition. The ability to understand the behavior and recognize persons of interest that might be approaching the stadium or coming into the stadium would lend itself to an event like the Super Bowl.
Other types of technology that would be very important would be video analytics to understand and gauge crowd behavior. In this scenario, video analytics can do several things beyond just assessing license plate recognition or facial recognition. Video analytics can aid in detecting suspicious packages and detecting behaviors of crowds, alerting officials of certain behaviors that might prove to be anomalous or of interest to security planners that are happening at a particular zone. This would allow them to take preemptive actions and deploy resources to be able to manage it.
How do social media monitoring and analysis work in tandem with facial recognition and some of these other AI-driven analytics that video surveillance is going to be picking up?
Technology is constantly changing in our society. It's incumbent upon law enforcement to be able to stay current with these technologies and understand how they might be able to use each to leverage their ability to mitigate and understand incidents that are happening within a given environment. Social media is one of those areas that law enforcement has been able to do exactly that by leveraging third-party platforms that monitor activity to understand the content of speech within those platforms which could indicate issues or problems happening in real-time. That could include using specific analytics that are able to determine from keyword searches. The ability for law enforcement to be able to monitor these platforms becomes hugely important.
To the extent that you can use technology to get out in front of an event and respond to it in real-time, gives you a tremendous advantage to mitigate that threat. The ability for law enforcement and security officials to leverage multiple technologies and leverage collaborative information-sharing across agencies and venues can help agencies understand threats and mitigate false positives by monitoring threats that are currently happening and those that have the potential to surface through other subsystems. For example, being able to integrate cameras and access control and intrusion detection devices through a common platform can help security planners better understand the threats that are happening and get out in front of them before an event spirals out of control.
How do you put together that integrated approach?
It really comes down to being able to leverage situational awareness and situational management. Situational awareness to the extent that you want to be able to provide the most amount of information to the end-user that you possibly can through several different subsystem technologies. But also, situational management becomes important, since it's one thing to be able to understand what's happening in your environment, but it's a whole other thing to be able to manage that situation, to be able to get out in front of it and resolve it.
For Vidsys, it is very important for us to be able to understand what the policies and procedures are that any particular customer. Obviously, the Super Bowl is a major event, so what are the policies and procedures that are in place that would allow security personnel, law enforcement and entities to effectively respond to a crisis event? We’d work with them to implement an action plan and workflows into the software so that when an event happens, all operators will be able to manage that event in real-time. Understanding what the policies and procedures are for all concerned parties enables them to work cohesively to better mitigate the risk for any types of threats.
