Security Costs at the 2010 Olympics by Mike Ward

The city of Vancouver is bustling with preparations for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. Intensive construction efforts directed to improve transportation, provide housing for athletes and venues for competitions have been underway for several years. Major projects such as the Sea to Sky Highway, and the Canada Line skytrain addition are just a few examples. The immense activity during a mega event such as an Olympic Games is mind boggling. For 17 days between February 12th and 18th the streets, buses, and skytrain will be congested constantly with people moving every which direction all day and night. Crowded stadiums filled with high profile VIP’s and athletes would be a tantalizing target for terrorist attacks. The logistics and costs to setup city wide surveillance and security are massive and several multi-million dollar studies are underway to strategize how best accomplish this goal.
The Vancouver Olympic Committee is expecting to spend somewhere around $177 million dollars on security for the games, however the number is likely to increase. Olympic watchdog’s “2010 Watch” spokesman Chris Shaw questions the validity of this claim. In 2002 the US spent over $500 million in Salt Lake, while the Athens Olympics ran a bill of $1.5 billion US dollars. How could a number like $177 million be realistic when other cities have spent so much more? Most of the money, approximately two thirds, will be spent on providing additional police and security personnel during the games. The next biggest expense will be surveillance equipment, voice stress analyzers, security cameras, and explosives sensing equipment. CCTV networks utilizing highly advanced hardware and software will give security officers an astounding amount of information. These networks will be able to recognize people’s faces and be able to rapidly cross check their identity with government records or hotel registrations. Rapid access to this information could give the police the edge they need to prevent a major terrorist disaster.

One concern is that the cameras will remain in place after the games, as they have in recent venues such as Salt Lake City and Sydney, and that they would infringe upon individual privacy. Indoor and outdoor cameras numbering in the thousands will be installed everywhere from Downtown Vancouver to Whistler. Others question whether or not the cameras will actually do anything to prevent even a small scale terrorist attack. Even if the presence of security cameras does not actually prevent a crime they would certainly help the Vancouver Police Department identify and apprehend perpetrators and this can help reduce crime in the long run.



About the Author
About the Author: Mike Ward is the owner and operator of Protection Depot, a leading online provider of security cameras and surveillance cameras. For more information about security cameras, please visit Protection Depot.