Most people are familiar with GPS (Global Positioning System) and how it works. When supervisors need to track and remotely monitor actions performed, such as the path of a security guard on patrol, GPS technology is used to supply the information requested.

As an essential component to our modern-day technology, GPS allows security companies to maintain consistent visibility on their teams even while working remotely.

Before diving into how security companies track guard performance with GPS technology, let’s break down what it is and how the industry has benefited from its use.

What is GPS Technology?

GPS is a satellite-based radionavigation system orbiting the earth and helps provide “meaningful information” about objects being tracked. 

The meaningful information can be anything from time-stamped historical information or real time coordinates of a person’s location. For physical security, this information is gathered by guards on patrol via a GPS enabled smartphone where it’s then visualized and displayed in a map.

How Can Security Guard Companies Use GPS?

Security companies relied on GPS technology to track their guards whereabouts and activity. Now, GPS technology is more important than ever and is being used to help security guard companies expand their visibility in a time when remote supervision is critical.

Here are three ways security companies have used GPS technology in the new normal.

1. Tracking remote teams as they complete their tours
2. Confirming a guard’s location while on patrol between sites
3. Ensuring guards stay within or out of a defined area

Tracking Remote Teams As They Complete Their Tours

Remote monitoring for physical security is the tracking, visualization, and control of a security guard’s activity and actions. Remote monitoring can provide support to supervisors overseeing large or multiple sites in different locations and harboring different security challenges.

Using a guard’s GPS enabled device, GPS aids remote monitoring by giving supervisors real-time feedback on where guards are in order to dispatch them quickly when emergencies arise.

Confirming A Guard’s Location While On Patrol Between Sites

Feedback from a guard’s location is connected to a central hub, such as a command center, where a supervisor will then be able to know where their guards are, the route of their tours, and if there are any missed checkpoints. 

A command center uses GPS to provide support to supervisors overseeing large or multiple sites in different locations each with unique security challenges. Here’s how.

• Remote monitoring with GPS tracking ensures contract agreements and SOPs are met
• Supervisors will have constant visibility on guards and facilities they are tasked in securing
• Supervisors will know which checkpoints are completed and by whom
• If an emergency arises, supervisors can dispatch their guards to the scene based on a guard’s proximity, or GPS location

Ensuring guards stay in or out of a defined area

Using a guard’s GPS enabled smartphone, a supervisor can also track where a guard is in proximity to other guards on the same site. This ensures that supervisors help guards maintain physical distancing compliance.

Additional technologies also make the command center a critical tool for establishing a single source of truth on all guard activity across all sites. Tools such as video systems used in physical security (like CCTV) have long been the gold standard for remote supervision.

Why It’s Important for Security Guard Companies To Get Started Using GPS Technology Now

Remote supervision is important now more than ever. This requires security companies to use technology not just as separate entities, but as a unified whole. Only a system made for security companies can accomplish just that.

Here are a few things security companies need in order to get started using GPS:

1. Know how and where your business will use technology to monitor sites
2. Evaluate the type of devices you’ll need and who will be using them
3. Set standards for BYOD (bring your own device) or employee work devices
4. Know the Pros and Cons to using GPS technology

As security companies work to maintain remote supervision on their teams, GPS technology will allow businesses to securely track and remotely monitor their sites.

The information taken from GPS technology can be used as part of a security company’s justification of a guard’s location during any given shift which is especially valuable when more supervisors are working remotely and not on site.