Methodology

SecurityTechIndex produces deterministic benchmark data for physical security systems. This page describes exactly how data enters the system, how it is validated, and how benchmarks are computed.

Data Ingestion

All data enters SecurityTechIndex through manual CSV upload by authorized administrators. There is no web scraping, no API feeds, and no vendor-submitted automated data. Every observation is traceable to a specific batch upload, a specific administrator, and a specific timestamp.

Each CSV row must include a category column that matches one of the defined system categories: cameras, VMS, storage, access control, or analytics. Rows that fail validation are rejected. No partial imports occur.

Statistical Thresholds

Benchmarks are only computed when a product line has five or more valid observations. Below that threshold, no benchmark is generated. There are no estimates, no interpolations, and no imputed values.

When a product line reaches twenty or more observations, the top and bottom 5% of values are trimmed before computation. This reduces the influence of outliers without discarding data from the underlying dataset.

Deterministic Computation Rules

All benchmark outputs are computed deterministically. Given the same set of observations, the engine will always produce the same result. Computed fields include: median, 25th percentile, 75th percentile, low, high, and sample count.

There is no confidence scoring. There is no weighting. There is no ranking of vendors or products. The engine computes statistical summaries and nothing more.

Governance Guardrails

Every observation records three audit fields: the ingestion timestamp, the batch identifier, and optionally the administrator who performed the upload. Batch identifiers are required and non-nullable.

Source types are tracked per observation. All current data is classified as manual upload. The system does not accept, process, or store data from automated pipelines.

PDF export is disabled. The benchmark engine operates in one of two states: building or live. While in building state, benchmark display surfaces placeholder content only.