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

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

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