In a world where sports stages are considered potential terrorist targets, AI security screening has been hailed as the future. In theory, it is a winner-win for places and customers.
The crowds diffuse transparently through electronic doors that detect potential weapons, causing a tap on the shoulder for a few people by scanning baguettes waving safety.
But Thursday evening, the potential dangers of this technology were fully visible to the largest stadium in Australia.
Among the tens of thousands of football fans at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG), two men would have worn firearms.
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They would have brought firearms by the new MCG security system, the first of its kind in the country.
The weapons would have been discovered until after the behavior of men caught the attention of the police, which searched them.
No one was injured in the incident – and the police excluded terrorism – but the security violation shocked the community in the broad sense.
Victorian Prime Minister Jacinta Allan called for a security examination on the site.
The managing director of Melbourne Cricket Club (MCC), Stuart Fox, said that the incident was “extremely disappointing and overwhelming”.
Screening technology in MCG – called Evolv Express – has been criticized in the United States Failed to detect weapons in schools.
A EVOLV security scanner at MCG. (Liendin))
Fox said that the MCG violation was finally due to a human error.
“Our security screening units have identified elements of concern and a more in-depth investigation was necessary, our initial internal investigation has identified a care of the minor and manual screening process,” he said via a press release.
Neil Fergus, a former Asio agent whose security company has worked on major international events, including the Olympic Games, said it was “not and that was supposed to work”.
“It is a very intelligent technology based on AI,” he said.
“The goal of the system is to let everyone pass, with the exception of those who alert – so they are subject to secondary control and intervention.
Neil Fergus, a former Asio officer who has become an international security consultant, said that IA security screening is the “mode of the future” in major stadiums – but operators must know what they are doing. (Four corners, file photo))
“‘Excuse me, sir, excuse me, madam, I need to check your bag. I will pass this electronic baguette on your person’ ‘and we go.”
But when things go wrong in overcrowded places like MCG, the consequences can be serious.
According to Asio, sports stages the major events are among the The favorite targets of terrorists.
“With threats – real threats – which have been detected and thwarted at the Paris Olympic Games, it is a brand new paradigm for major events”, “
Mr. Fergus said.
The technological company faces the court
Evolv Express involves contactless scanners specifically to detect “hidden weapons”, according to the website of the United States based.
He said that his “advanced sensor technology and artificial intelligence” had picked up a variety of weapons and ran into stadiums, schools and hospitals in the United States for several years.
Fergus said he was “widely used in the United States, including the Super Bowl, including the two major major football stadiums”.
“And I understand that the MCC went and looked at its operation before hiring the supplier here to install and implement it,” he said.
It was used for the first time during Taylor Swift concerts at MCG at the start of 2024 when 300,000 fans sank through the stadium doors.
The singer-songwriter of the American singer Taylor Swift played for records at MCG in February 2024. (AAP: Joel Carrett))
But recent judicial cases in the United States have questioned the capacity of this technology.
The American Federal Trade Commission (FTC) continued Evolv on the use of technology in schools, its trial alleging that the company has made false complaints on its security screening system fueled by AI.
The case settled in late 2024, with Evolv not obliged to admit or deny one of the allegations.
However, within the framework of the colony, the FTC prohibited EVOLV from making complaints on the ability of technology to detect weapons, to ignore harmless personal objects and its precision of weapons detection.
Documents also indicate that Evolv has not been authorized to make complaints on “any material aspect of its performance, its effectiveness, its nature or its central characteristics”, including its use of algorithms and artificial intelligence.
The regulator also gave certain American schools which installed Evolv express the possibility of canceling their contract.
In response, the acting CEO of Evolv technology, Mike Ellenbogen, said that the case was linked to previous marketing documents, and did not dispute “the fundamental efficiency of our technology”.
“To be clear, this survey concerned past marketing language and not the ability of our system to add value to security operations,” he said at the time.
Evolv is also the subject of two collective remedies, similar allegations have been disseminated as to whether the company has overestimated the capacity of technology.
The police alleged that two men had firearms when they attended a football match on Thursday evening at the MCG. (Provided))
Other concerns about efficiency
Conor Healy, director of government research for the American group IPVM, said that the company’s transparency concerning its technology was worrying.
He said the IPVM, which focuses on surveillance and security technologies, has been investigating the company since 2021.
He found that Evolv would have overestimated the ability of his machines to differentiate the weapons from ordinary metal objects.
Conor Healy of the Independent Society for the Evaluation of IPVM Technologies said that the survey of its organization on Evolv Express revealed that the company had overestimated the capacity of machines. (Provided))
Part of the concern, as indicated in an IPVM report of 2022, is the rate of false positives for these machines.
Mr. Healy said that he could range from 5 to 60%, which varied depending on the sensitivity setting.
Although he said that each detection system had false positives, a higher number could lead to the complacency of security agents.
“When you have it, which is triggered on all these objects which are not weapons, if an operator does not manage to make a secondary projection of someone … You can call this human error. But another term is the fatigue of the operator,” said Healy.
“A bunch of false positives being triggered could potentially lead people not to take manual security checks as seriously as they should be, and security guards may not have time to do so if they are dealing with a big crowd.”
MCG IA security technology is the first of its kind to be used in Australia. (ABC News: Patrick Rocca))
Healy also said that he knew companies that had reduced security staff after installing technology, which could potentially worsen the problem.
In a Press release 2020Evolv has suggested the personnel reduction potential, saying that its customers “optimize the performance of their security teams while reducing screening expenses up to 70%”.
The MCC refused to say if he now had less security personnel.
While Mr. Healy said he did not know the details of how MCG technology had been put in place, he said that Evolv’s messaging could lead to a “false feeling of security”.
“What we have so often seen with Evolve is an attempt not to be to come with the public on the level of security that is offered,” he said.
“ Way of the future ”
Mr. Fergus, the security expert, said that if the AI screening system gave so many false positives that security had stopped paying attention, it was not used correctly.
“It must be tested, calibrated regularly and has operators who know how it is supposed to work,” he said.
“Secondary screening should not be overwhelmed by false positives.
“If it is calibrated properly, there will be very few false positives.
“I made 11 Olympic Games, four FIFA World Cups, six or seven Commonwealth games (AI projection) is absolutely the way for the future.”
He said that the AI system’s scanning capacities were fundamentally the same as the old metal detectors.
“The advantage is that it provides for a much faster flow, a step higher, with less intrusion in terms of customers,” he said.
He said it improved on a disastrous scenario presented by the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games in 2018.
“During the first two days, the ministers apologized to the public, the families were in tears, an hour and a half late in the stadium to look at the opening ceremony because of the projection,” said Fergus.
“It took a while to fix it. And to be honest, one of the ways he was corrected was that they started to push more people with less rigorous secondary research – not good.”
For the moment, the Minister of Tourism, Sport and major events of Victoria, Steve Dimopoulos, said that security measures would be strengthened at MCG this weekend, and that an examination of security environments would be shared with other sites across the State.
The MCC refused to provide additional comments because the incident is now in court.