Uniforms of 41,000 security guards in Beijing will be modified next month to make them look less like police officers, ending a practice that has caused public confusion. Currently people of both professions wear sky-blue shirts and navy blue pants, and sometimes the only difference is a light stripe down a guard's trousers, the Beijing Morning Post reported yesterday. 'People can't tell us apart,' said one guard at a Beijing restaurant. In October, 1.6 million police officers were given new uniforms so that they looked less like soldiers. That change, from olive green khakis to blue suits, caused the current confusion. Not every guard wears the same sort of uniform. Individual companies - big hotels or office complexes, for example - can buy their own style of uniforms, including ties and maroon berets with tassels. They can also hire guards from a city police-run unit, and these guards normally wear the two-tone blue suits, sometimes with a shoulder patch reading 'Beijing Security'. In Beijing, almost every bank, hotel, major restaurant and shopping centre has at least one guard to deter troublemakers. Differences in uniform have allowed people to cheat, saying they are city-sanctioned security guards when they are not, the Beijing Morning Post said. A public security official told the paper many violent security-related incidents involved bogus guards. The new uniforms will be worn from July 1.