Commercial entities have a number of choices regarding security.These range from providing none at all to securing themselves andtheir employees and customers behind locked gates and high wallswith armed guards, either directly employed or contracted fromsecurity services.

For some organizations, the latter is exactly what is required,if not by law, at least by necessity. Examples of these would benuclear power stations, FAA installations, military bases,chemical, biological, or defense contractor factories,pharmaceutical labs, and similar facilities have a definiteexposure to domestic or foreign terrorist attacks or industrialespionage.

Such entities are not openly accessible to the general public.Visitors must register, perhaps pass through metal detectors orhave their vehicles searched, and, in some cases, have theirpresence verified by whomever they are to visit. Identityclearance, besides name badges or electronic identification cards,often includes high-tech systems, such as fingerprint or eye-printdetection. In 2004, for example, the University of California,operator of the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, wasbeing scrutinized for a security lapse resulting in two missingcomputer data storage devices, resulting in almost 20 employees'being stripped of their security badges and privileges.