The first independent U.S. study on tailgating awareness, just released, finds that 58% of Americans have never heard the term “tailgating” used to describe an unauthorized person, following someone else through a locked door.
The gap in security awareness is striking given how common the experience is: 45% of Americans say they have personally experienced or witnessed someone entering a secured space without using their own credentials, according to the study.
“Tailgating is the crime that occurs before a more serious crime. It is every security director’s nightmare. This summer, Harvard, UCLA, and the NBC News staff at the Today show experienced the devastating impact tailgaters can have. Thankfully, the victim at Harvard fought off her attacker, but the young women at UCLA have had their lives changed forever,” said Tina D’Agostin, CEO of Alcatraz AI and a leading expert in physical security technology.
The survey lands after three tailgating incidents at three iconic institutions. In May, an intruder followed students through a secured entrance into UCLA dormitories, where he is accused of sexually assaulting four undergraduates in their dorm rooms. The same week, an intruder followed an undergrad through a gate and a badge-secured door at Harvard’s Lowell House and allegedly attempted to force his way into her room. In July, a man slipped behind an employee’s badge swipe into a restricted area of 30 Rockefeller Center and confronted NBC News Today show anchor Craig Melvin with a racial slur before being detained by security.
In each case, the access-control system worked exactly as designed: when the card was swiped, the door unlocked. It had no way to register that a second, unauthorised person had walked through the same door behind it.
What the three men had in common wasn’t just how they got in. It’s what they did once they were inside. Court records describe the UCLA intruder carrying zip ties, duct tape and rope; the Harvard suspect had attempted to assault another woman earlier in the evening; the 30 Rock intruder had a prior felony conviction and multiple other pending cases. Tailgating is the crime before the crime: it is the opportunity bad actors exploit every day because most buildings use 30-year-old technology: the badge reader.
Key findings
- 58% of Americans had not heard the term “tailgating” used this way before being asked, despite the fact that nearly half have lived through it themselves.
- 45% of Americans have personally experienced or witnessed someone entering a secured building without using their own badge, key or code.
- 88% call it a serious security risk once it’s explained to them (51% “very serious,” 37% “somewhat serious”): awareness is low, but concern is not.
Just 26% of parents of school-age or college-age children and current students are aware that this kind of unauthorised entry has been linked to assaults in dormitories, yet 76% say they would be more concerned for their child’s safety if they knew a badge system could be bypassed this way, including 51% who say they’d be “significantly more concerned.”
