When New York City Mayor Eric Adams first met a representative from Evolv, the ai weapons detection company, he was given a list of places the scanners could be used, including hospitals , schools, Times Square and the Port Authority bus terminal. What seems to have persuaded Adams, according to emails obtained by cablingwas Evolv's revelation of another important client: Disney.
“As I mentioned, Linda Reid, vice president of security at Walt Disney World (Florida) has known us since 2014 and implemented many of our systems at the parks and Disney Springs,” Evolv co-founder Anil Chitkara wrote in an email to the Adams office. on February 7, 2022. “They have had success in detecting weapons with Evolv Express… There may be some interesting parallels with the way you think about everyone's role in security.”
In fact, New York City tested Evolv scanners at a Bronx hospital and outside the entrance to City Hall later that year. And although the results of both pilots were disappointing (the machines reported false positives at the Bronx hospital more than 85 percent of the time), Adams announced that the city will test Evolv's gun detectors on the subways later this year .
Fundamentally, Evolv's speech to Adams No include the subway as a possible use case for the sensors. In fact, in a recent investor call, Evolv CEO Peter George said the detectors are not geared toward public transportation, cabling reports.
We reached out to Adams' office to ask why the mayor decided to test the scanners in the subway and what parallels, if any, he sees between Disney theme parks and the Metropolitan Transit Authority; We will update it when we have news. One possible parallel is the amount of foot traffic. In June 2020 Interview with attractions magazine, Evolv co-founder Mike Ellenbogan said the company's Evolv Express units can scan 1,800 to 3,600 guests per hour, depending on the model. The interview was published shortly after Six Flags said it had ordered 37 units for some of its parks across the country.
A month later, the Disney-focused blog The place of laughter reported that Disney was testing the Evolv Express system at Disney Springs, a type of open-air shopping center outside Orlando, Florida. Evolv scanners were installed at some entrances to Disney parks in Florida (Epcot, Animal Kingdom, Hollywood Studios and Magic Kingdom) later that year, according to ai-security-scanners-bag-check-procedures-implemented-at-the-parks.970383/”>WDW Magic forum posts. Disney has consequently expanded his use of Evolv scanners since then.
