13 Sep Evolution of security industry – our 40 years

Ever since the signing of the Magna Carta, there has been a ‘due process’ for people to protect themselves, their families, their possessions and their industries. For a very long time, the basic principles of security remained the same. If you look right back to pre-historic times, there are plenty of parallels that still exist between what was essentially security back then, and what we know it as today. 

Settlements were protected by secure perimeters – water, trenches, walls, or natural features such as cliffs. Over time people realised the need to gain a tactical advantage over intruders and developed lookout posts and watch-towers. Warning bells might sound if threats were detected. 

All these elements provided security in much the same way as today’s solutions, albeit on a much simpler scale – secure perimeters now represented by access control solutions, watchtowers have been replaced by surveillance cameras, warning bells by alarm and audio systems. 

At no point in history though, has the industry witnessed faster change than over the last forty years. Since 2019 is the year of our fortieth birthday, we look back on how the industry has changed since we came into being.

In the early 1950s, still twenty years before PMT Security was born, Video Tape Recorders were coupled with small TV cameras, and these became commercially available for the first time in 1956. Over the next decade public surveillance cameras systems became more common. Moving forward a  decade, but still ten years before PMT Security, the first home surveillance system was sold. CCTV became common in the 1970s, and then in 1976 Charge-coupled Device (CCD) technology saw the advent of the first low-light surveillance camera. Banks and other secure premises were the early adopters of CCTV technology, and in 1990 ATMs began to have cameras built into them to protect customers at the point of transaction.

In 1996, the first IP camera came into being. The IP camera was able to transmit information, video and images across computer networks,