Market intelligence report: homeland security

This document provides market intelligence into the sector defined as homeland security by the Intermediary Technology Institute (ITI) in Techmedia. For the purposes of this study the definition of homeland security market is: private sector products and services which make a substantial contribution to protecting a nation (population, infrastructure and critical assets) against security threats arising from sources other than war. The report provides an overview of the homeland security market, sets out key trends, drivers and inhibitors, reviews the outlook for market development and describes eleven opportunities in the market along with the specific needs identified for each opportunity.

Information was obtained following the principles of market intelligence gathering (also known as foresighting) established by ITI Techmedia. Both primary and secondary market data were acquired and collated. Primary data was collected using interviews with market experts (both public and private sector) and workshops held with leading companies active in the sector, along with representation from the public sector concerned with national security. Desk research was used to obtain secondary data from internationally recognised market analysts.

The research reports that homeland security markets have undergone substantial development and growth since 9/11, driven by the actual and perceived threat from terrorist attack and the potential impact on the population, economy and political environment of a nation. Governments have allocated large budgets to these markets because of the need to protect the nation and political imperative of being seen to be taking action. The market potential is clearly extremely significant with market spend in 2007 around USD27 billion, which is expected to grow to USD90 billion by 2017. Homeland security is a complex market however, where the governments are the main customer and the need to respond to individual incidents (or the threat of such incidents) drives spending. Given these conditions, governments may not invest in the most important areas to defend against in the future. Despite significant spend over the last five years, there are still unmet needs, many of which have very demanding and interesting technical challenges which offer opportunities for innovation. Eleven market opportunity areas were identified: explosives detection; airport perimeter security; video analytics; CCTV; biometrics (face recognition); border monitoring and control; data analysis and threat detection via intelligent data mining; freight container security; threat detection based on data fusion and domain-specific threat modelling and analysis; vulnerability assessment; and information intelligence. The report suggests that while these opportunity areas are likely to be subject to constraints, it is likely that successful developments will also lead to significant commercial opportunities for the technology, which in many cases will provide revenue opportunities.

There were no recommendations as this was not within the remit of the report.