Conterterrorism

The Counter-Terror Marketplace: A Necessity For Lack Of Choice

The Counter-Terror industry is no small fish nowadays. At $300bn, the industry is now a mammoth with a lot of wares to sell. The latest Security and Counter Terror Expo (SCTX) in London provided the stage for many manufacturers to show off what they’ve been working on.

One of the more exciting pieces of hardware on show was Mobilewatch from England-based Whiterock. Mobilewatch is a nifty phone surveillance tool that detect, locate, and monitor mobile devices in a given area. Whiterock CEO Raili Maripuu says interest in the product is large, partly as a response to the Paris attacks. “With mobile detection systems, you would know where [the terrorists] are.”

The market for counter-terror products, in general, is large and only growing. The growing threat of terror is keeping many up at night, and for good reason. Chris Phillips, former head of Britain’s National Counter Terrorism Security Office, has said the danger is far more menacing than it ever was. “We have a slightly different threat today,” he says. “The IRA [Irish Republican Army] did not want to kill a lot of people but unfortunately Islamist terrorists do.”