SIA CEO Don Erickson and Senior Manager of Government Relations Joe Hoellerer recently sat down with me at the Axis Communications ACCC partners event in Austin, Texas to discuss top-of-mind issues facing the security industry today.
We ran the gamut of Smart Cities initiatives, privacy issues to procurement policy and procedure. Under Erickson’s leadership the past eight years as CEO, SIA has launched countless industry initiatives in transportation, school and border security, policy issues surrounding expanding technologies like AI, facial recognition and cybersecurity and has become a fixture on Capitol Hill championing the security industry on state and federal legislation, policies and regulations that SIA tracks for potential impact on the security landscape.
Don Erickson was appointed CEO of the Security Industry Association on Nov. 1, 2011. He previously served as SIA director of government relations from 2006 to 2011.
As CEO, he leads the implementation of SIA’s Board Strategic Framework and oversees SIA’s collaboration with industry and vertical market associations and organizations. He is responsible for the management of SIA’s operations and programs including marketing, government relations, education and standards initiatives and serves as the organization’s primary liaison to ISC Events.
Joe Hoellerer is one of the youngbloods on the SIA staff. In this capacity, he serves as the lead on congressional relations, political affairs, and works closely with the senior director of government relations and SIA leadership. Prior to SIA, he worked in the government affairs department of Associated Builders and Contractors and held a position with the Republican National Committee during the 2012 presidential election. Hoellerer also interned for the U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security.
Steve Lasky: Building the infrastructure around Smart Cities is certainly a topic of discussion at many physical and cybersecurity events we attend. Can you give us an update on this initiative?
Don Erickson: A lot of integrators are becoming more interested in Smart Cities opportunities. We are trying to create additional investment in security for some legislation, along with working on some grant dollars. Joe has been taking the lead on this so, why don't you explain what we're trying to do and where it stands.
Joe Hoellerer: Absolutely. As Don cited in his presentation, before 2019, security was often viewed as an afterthought when it came to Smart Cities. Most of the focus centered on transportation, mobility, reducing your carbon footprint. But there was never an opportunity for security solution providers to have a seat at the table and say, "Hey, I think our products need to be integrated into the larger smart cities project." What we've done is proactively worked with members of Congress and other industry groups to say we'd also like to be a represented stakeholder in this debate. Now we have three pieces of legislation that prioritize security solutions based on the scope and necessity of the smart cities project. If some of these bills are enacted, it would allow grant recipients to use those grant dollars to integrate security solutions into a Smart Cities project.
Lasky: Is this a SIA initiative?
Hoellerer: I think right now, from the security industry standpoint, yes, we're the primary stakeholder. But as it relates to smart cities, as you know, there are various stakeholders that are working in this space.
Erickson: So, there's a coalition around the bill, around smart cities in general, from various industries. But we're the leading security group that is trying to elevate the use of security technology as an integral part of the Smart Cities foundational landscape.
Lasky: Can you kind of give us a little overview of the three pieces of legislation that we're looking at?
Hoellerer: The first one was introduced by Congresswoman Yvette Clark (D-N.Y., 9th District). In that legislation, you'll see security solutions explicitly defined at the beginning of the legislation for the first time, at least to my knowledge, for a Smart Cities bill. That means companies like Axis and other security solution providers could get their products procured and used for Smart Cities. The other two are companion bills that are just your larger general transportation, Smart Cities types of bills, but they also have sections in there that outline the project criteria and security is one of the criteria based on the scope and necessity of the project.
Lasky: Are the cities asking for these security stipulations to be built into the scope on their behalf or are the integrators and vendors behind moving security to top of mind?
Hoellerer: I think the cities are definitely looking for assistance from the federal government on Smart Cities as a whole. They know that they can't bear the entire financial burden of standing up a Smart City, so they're looking to agencies like the Department of Transportation or the Department of Energy to help subsidize some of the costs. Again, it's been an effort where cities are going to states, and then states are going to the federal government. I think we're in a unique position where all three levels of government will, hopefully, work in unison to accomplish the same goal.
Lasky: Follow-up question. Number one, how motivated is the federal government? Number two, how invested are state and local governments to motivate the federal government?
Hoellerer: Legislatively, I think it's tricky because at the beginning of this year most industry groups were optimistic about a transportation infrastructure bill being considered in this Congress. But given that we're in a very divisive time right now with impeachment and other politically divisive issues, I think the chances that Congress actually takes up an infrastructure bill is very small at this point. But, again, we'll see what happens after the dust settles with impeachment. This may be something we want to revisit, maybe after the campaign. But outside of the corridors of Capitol Hill, I know those city officials are very passionate, and they want their cities to stand apart from all the other cities. In that vein, they're trying to find unique ways to prioritize all the Smart City projects that are out there.
Erickson: Let's pick up on that for a second. For most objective people, you have a completely dysfunctional federal government at the moment. Politics aside. However, there is something that I'll call automatics that must happen. You still must have appropriations occur, even if it's a continuing resolution. You still must have grant programs funded, as we just talked about, even if it's at reduced levels. So, for integrators, there is some predictability despite this dysfunction.
There's going to be streams of funding that's going to be available for integrators to compete for with their clients. And, hopefully, one of the messages I was trying to communicate here is they can become better grant advisers to their customers in terms of identifying grants, understanding how the process works, securing the grants, despite the dysfunction. I think if I'm an integrator, there are opportunities despite the political climate.
Lasky: To that point, a lot of integrators really aren't that well versed in the procurement process. How do you make them better citizens and how do you make them more consultative?
Erickson: There are going to be multi-components to it. It's got to have, number one, helping integrators understand how to navigate and understand the existing resources out there, grants.gov, usaspending.gov, sites like that, and even understanding regulations better through regulations.gov and how that drives investments.
SIA’s goal as an association is to help integrators, help them save time to understand what the policies and the requirements are for all applicable security grant programs, whether that be port security grant program, transit security program, or UASI within an airport improvement program. SIA wants to help integrators better understand the policies behind the requirements behind each of those programs so that they can better advise their customers on how to apply for those grants.
Lasky: What's the biggest impediment that security integrators have? Is it simply a lack of understanding?
Erickson: I don't think it's a lack of understanding. I think a lack of understanding is different from a lack of awareness. I think it's a lack of awareness of what the applicable grant programs are out there. We produced a guide for security grant programs they could apply for. For integrators, for them, it is to truly understand which customers eligible for them and is a cost-share requirement a part of it. How much is video surveillance prioritized within a given program, for example? Having them understand what those requirements are and how they need to be applied is where the association comes in and that'll be part of our grants program. We're going to put together, essentially, the top 10 ways to create a winning grant proposal to leverage security grants. And that's, hopefully, going to save the integrator time to do it themselves.
Lasky: Can you discuss a few of the top issues?
Erickson: Understanding the needs and understanding the list of requirements of the grant program itself are the two big issues. What's eligible, what are the requirements? Secondly, how is that going to advance the mission of the grant program?
Hoellerer: Grants are such a complicated issue. The stuff that you covered, again, eligibility versus ineligibility, but just really getting down into the weeds. I guess in summary it boils down to which eligible entities should be pursuing these types of grants and which ones should an integrator probably devote resources and are there other relevant grants that might accomplish a similar mission.
Lasky: Moving beyond procurement, what would you rate as another top of mind issue facing SIA and its security industry partners?
Erickson: Data privacy and privacy, in general. You know, what the requirements are for how you handle customer data is a huge issue right now with not only GDPR but also what's occurred in California and other states like Maine and Massachusetts that are looking at similar privacy legislation. I'm very passionate about privacy and workforce development, among other things. I think, much like grants, integrators can be advisers on privacy requirements to their customers as well, but I don’t see them embracing it as much when I go to integrator-related events. Privacy is big and the number one technology issue out there right now is facial recognition.
Take for example, cities like Somerville, Mass., and San Francisco (that are passing legislation outlawing the use of facial recognition), I don't mind saying this on the record, but at some point, SIA may have to contemplate filing suit in some jurisdiction to test the constitutionality of one of these bands. It would probably be a ban that is broad in scope and not just limited to law enforcement. We are also concerned about municipalities extending the band to commercial use as well. Right now, the proposed bands that have been enacted in San Francisco and Somerville, have affected public use. Some guard rails are being adopted but the privacy advocates are very extreme on these bands and are neglecting the beneficial aspects of facial recognition like finding missing children, identifying terrorists, etc. I think SIA must do more of a PR campaign around the effective use of facial recognition.
Hoellerer: To piggyback on what Don said, I think an area that's under-reported with the facial recognition debate is most of our members are, at least the ones that aren't directly involved in FR, are probably thinking, "Oh, if we don't have any FR capabilities, I probably don't need to worry about these bans that are being considered in cities, and potentially in some states and even Congress."
However, I think we need to increase awareness of the fact that most of these bans have a coupling ordinance where it puts immense scrutiny on city officials who want to use just general security technology – not just facial recognition. This could impact alarms, video cameras, and analytics. If you look at what was passed in San Francisco there was another ordinance that would mandate any city agency, including law enforcement or the department of public works that wanted to acquire a security technology, would have to draft a policy and then that policy would have to go before the city legislature.
Then the city legislature would approve or disapprove the procurement of said technology. I suppose the privacy advocates are advocating for a transparent process, but it's going to potentially open the door for more scrutiny. If you get legislators that are flimsy on these issues, they might disapprove future procurement of any security technology. That could certainly preclude future business opportunities at the city levels. The point is that, at least within the SIA community, we need to better communicate to our members that we understand that this is centrally focused on facial recognition, but there's another under-reported part that could hurt your ability to do business with the city or state government as we move forward.
About the Author:
Steve Lasky is a 33-year veteran of the security publishing industry and multiple-award-winning journalist. He is currently the Editorial and Conference Director for the Endeavor Business Security Media Group, the world’s largest security media entity, serving more than 190,000 security professionals in print, interactive and events. It includes Security Technology Executive, Security Business and Locksmith Ledger International magazines, and SecurityInfoWatch.com, the most visited security web portal in the world.
