Dubai police and private sector look to set up security innovation centre

Major Dr Mohammad Alketbi of Dubai Police said the private sector held a talent pool whose skills, when joined, could improve the security of the citizens of Dubai. Jeffrey E Biteng / The National

DUBAI // Dubai Police are looking to collaborate with the private sector on a national security innovation centre, delegates at the Intersec security conference in Dubai heard on Monday.

Major Dr Mohammad Alketbi said the force was focusing on work with more local companies.

“It can be an inspiring place,” he said. “It would contain professionals, government institutions and business owners who can all work together because this is an issue we have in our system. It is a need.”

Maj Alketbi said security companies in the UAE did not train enough local students.

“They will be the leaders in the future, so we have to teach them the importance of security and its assessment,” he said at a forum that addressed cyber crime.

“Most of our students go to government agencies but where is the involvement of the private sector here?”

The police have worked with private security companies providing special training programmes through the academy.

“Our duty is to protect spaces that are normally crowded with people like malls, metros, theme parks and stadiums, from threats and it is our greatest challenge,” Maj Alketbi said.

“With modern technology, we could reduce the risk so we’d like our partners and private and public sectors to focus on the needs of the Government and the country. This centre can be a place for us to lead, collaborate and share knowledge.”

The digital age means threats are evolving, the forum heard.

“ISIS send out thousands of tweets a day so they’re very good at social media management,” said Salem Al Nuaimi, head of organisational safety and security at the National Emergency Crisis and Disaster Management Authority.

“Most of them are very smart engineers, they send out almost 36 videos a day with a minimum length of 20 minutes so this is an indication of how important social media is when people try to harm us.”

He said more investment was needed in planning.

“Most agencies don’t pay a lot of attention to this,” he said. “It needs to be a win-win situation between the private sector and the Government and, as a Government agency, I’d like to have a real cooperation between [both] because we need them as we invest heavily in research.”

According to consultancy Frost & Sullivan, social media will be one of the key drivers behind the growth of the security market.

“The region is growing at an unparalleled rate,” said Niju V, the company’s director of automation and electronics practice.

“Cyber security still looms large over the region and homeland security seems to be growing significantly well with a 15.5 per cent growth from 2015 to 2021. This could be the highest growth which homeland security has witnessed in the world.”

The market is set to grow from $7.1 billion in 2015 to $17bn by 2021, primarily in infrastructure security.