Security, for what?

Hi there,

I spent my Saturday to meet my old friend who I have not met for 4 years. We went to a party, not a drinking type one, outside Bangkok. It was very good atmosphere there, paddy field and river scenes. I really enjoyed it.

For a while after my friend left my house, she gave me a call.
"I had argument with secuity guard of your village. They asked me to open my car's trunk and I refused to do because they couldn't explain to me why", she said on the phone.

"Oh I forgot to tell you that it is procedure of my village security sytem that all visitors have to open the trunk", I explained to her.

"Yes, for what? I got my pass ticket stamped by you. I asked them whether they were afraid that I would steal sign posts and security guard said 'something like that'. I told them I didn't steal anything so why do I have to open the trunk" she kept complaining.

"I agree and disagree with you. By your logic, you don't steal so no need for anyone to check your car. But by their logic, anyone who refuse for inspection is suspect. I agree with you that if they don't know why they have to inspect the car's trunk, what's the point to inspect. What will they do if they see your computer there? Will they know it is yours or mine? Sometimes people just do what they asked to do without finding out why." I tried to calm her down.

"I told them they could call you to ask but they also refsed to do and talked to me badly." she said.

"Maybe they thought you started talking badly first. And, maybe you are the 10th visitors who refused for inspection and gave them hard time. You don't know. Anyway, no excuses for them to behave like that. I agree if you want to give management of my village a call, but make sure that they understand your point of complaints which are (1) security guard should be trained more to understand reasons for all rules so they will know what to do next, not just open the trunk and not even look inside, and (2) how to deal with various kinds of reaction properly. Don't make them misunderstand that you want them to exclude "trunk inspection' procedure. For me, it makes someone who wants to steal thinks twice. I may call mamagement myself to complain that why the security guard let visitor left the village still when she refused to open the trunk. Just because she made some argument?"

Yeah, my friend may behave improperly, but she is not the purpose that I post this blog entry. It is security system I want to talk about. Is it for show or for security really?

If you have been to MBK or other large malls, you will see a scanner installed at the entrance of the mall. Everyone who is walking in, has to walk pass this scanner. When I first saw it, I thought "wow, good security. no bomb for sure!". But when I heard beep noise (which normally that person will be re-check what causes the noise) and looked to see security guard reaction, I had to be disappointed. Security guard didn't do anything with it, not even take a look where the beep noise came from. I thought "what's the point to installed scanner here? Such money and energy wasting!"

My ex's apartment also has funny security system. All tenants have to register their finger print and everytime they want to get access to elevator lobby, they have to scan their finger. Wow sound like high security, does it means that outsider who doesn't have finger print registered cannot access to apartment floor? Nope, if you don't have your finger print register, just use service elevator which anyone can access. Ok, it is not really easy that anyone can access by service elevator because there are cameras wathcing you, but what if nobody looks at the security monitoring screen?

It happens here that government has installed thousands of security cameras at risky area, but when something bad happened and we want to see suspect from the tapes, what we hear is "Oh that camera is broken" or "Ummm...we run out of tape so nothing recorded".

Some security system here is just a joke and for show, making customers or tenants feel safe. My suggestion is you'd better trust and look after yourself.

xx
me