ACCESS CONTROL
Post COVID Facility Access ControlOn-Premise vs. Cloud/Hosted.
By Rick CaruthersPresident, Galaxy Control Systems
The recent and on-going pandemic has changed the way business of all sizes operate on a daily basis. Mandatory lockdowns have strained many companies ability to manage their facilities efficiently in a remote fashion. Many of these companies had systems installed in a traditional on-premise server/client configuration but effectively operating these through quickly configured VPN or other paths has proven to be difficult. It also exposed the situation of on-site support when the servers or other hardware needed that personal interaction due to upgrades or patches. Many companies now are exploring the need to consider moving these systems to a cloud-hosted environment. Cloud hosted
systems coupled with web interfaces and mobile applications provide a level of remote control needed when offsite work is required. Having the ability to add hardware resources and software updates through a remote session into a secure data center will increase the effective use of a system. These data centers afford the users of multiple ISP channels as well as hardware, data and communications failover and disaster recovery all within the model of a monthly subscription. Many customers from small independent businesses to large multisite corporations are starting to migrate many of their internal computing programs to this model like email, ERP, HR and others. Why should security take a back seat to this migration? It should not, and as a security integrator you should start now having this discussion with your customers and when you do I think you will find they are ready and willing.
Smart buildings and smarter security
By Alanna Fairey
While the world at large has been uprooted by the COVID-19 pandemic, it is unsurprising that buildings have had to change their business and security policies to adjust to the new normal.
COVID-19 has placed a higher premium on agility for property managers while smart technology helps them address occupancy and access control challenges
Jody Reid, security manager, H&R REIT, at The BOW in Calgary acknowledges this extraordinary shift.
“We’ve noticed the value of the security on the site and how they can bring a lot of value as we change policies and procedures,” Reid said in an interview with Canadian Security. “We seem to be changing daily and sometimes hourly at times, especially in the early days, continually just having to shift with everything I guess was a big part of it.”
Reid explained that The BOW had to change several security policies and procedures, which included a “soft lockdown” when the general public was not allowed into the building.
As buildings began to slowly enter the reopening phase, Reid said that because The BOW has some retail aspects in the office tower, he and his team were working with the tenants through continually shifting the policy procedures around security response.
“There has been a huge shift that has been driven by the tenants,” Reid said. “We’re like a single tenant building but there’s some sub leases in there.
“A lot of those decisions we made around wearing masks and certain signage and protocols throughout the building have been in collaboration through discussions with the
tenants on moving that forward.”
According to Andy Schonberger, director of client services at Intelligent Buildings, LLC, a number of the company’s clients are looking at solutions as simple as additional cleaning services to try and give their occupants more comfort that the building is being looked after and is not going to be a transmission vector. In other cases, “it’s really exploded in terms of what our customers are asking for in terms of new capabilities,” Schonberger said.
All access
In a webinar presentation hosted by the Building Owners and Management Association (BOMA) called “Back to Work: How technology can keep your occupants and your building safe,” industry experts discussed policies and best practices for implementing a coordinated and unified security vision within a multi-stakeholder property management model.
Ed Seaman, Related Companies’ director of physical security technology, who took part in BOMA’s webinar, believes that some of the most crucial components of property management are site entry and access control operations.
“The use of access control to assist in occupancy management is a technology tool that is always overlooked and underutilized,” Seaman explained. “By enforcing access control to ensure the employees, visitors, tenants comply with our standard operating procedures, with their safety being the utmost important, is one of the features that we are using at Related properties.”
Reid shared that The BOW has taken a look at touchless access points in the form of readers and access buttons as a means to secure the property, while also assessing the risk and retrofitting the technology effectively.
“We’ve also made adjustments on our elevator capacity and utilizing existing software in the elevator systems and adjusting these to only allow a certain number of people on the elevator,” Reid said. “We’re at the three person maximum per elevator, so we’ve been able to adjust the weight limits where if it has three people in the elevator, it’ll bypass all of the floors and won’t stop.”
“COVID has really increased that need to use technology to access the building and within a lot of risks,” Schonberger said.
Describing this time as a “Wild West,” Schonberger noted that a number of technology companies have begun trying to sell applications, cameras, widgets, sensors or services.
As a modern building (The BOW opened less than 10 years ago) Reid shared that The BOW already had an extensive technology base prior to the pandemic.
“Temperature detection is not enough to just catch the virus or catch someone who may be symptomatic.”
— Andy Schonberger, Intelligent Buildings
Built to a high standard, “it allowed us to show the value in some of the technology that we did have in place.”
Utilizing existing analytics tools along with their surveillance cameras, Reid said these technologies have helped bring to light some challenges that the property has faced in keeping the building and its occupants safe.
Intelligent Buildings focuses on cyber and technical security — Schonberger shared that those issues have become a huge eye opener for many of their clients. “They’ve had so many breaches as a result from operations staff not using best practices or not being given proper tools to securely access their building.”
Tech talks
The rise of COVID-19 has seen a plethora of technology solutions for smart buildings, according to property management experts.
“What we’re seeing now is an acceleration of the use of technology,” Schonberger said. “A lot more comfort with technology being something that can solve business problems for clients and what I think is that COVID has been an accelerant to strategy.”
Nada Ebeid, Genetec Canada’s business development property manager, who also took part in BOMA’s webinar, said that technology can play an essential role in making sure that smart buildings are secure and safe as they start to reopen.
“Technology can really enable us all to work smarter and more efficiently,” Ebeid said in her presentation.
“Look at how technology can help you manage the flow within your building your lobbies, your open spaces, how it can help you manage the access control process and the approvals for tenants and visitors and provide you the means to be as touchless as possible.”
However, Ebeid warned that just because the technology is “cool,” safety should still be the No. 1 priority.
While technologies such as infrared cameras and temperature detection software have soared since the pandemic, Schonberger warns property managers not to be sold on a dream.
“Everybody I think is enamored with the idea that there’s some single technology that is going to solve their problem,” Schonberger said. “Temperature detection is not enough to just catch the virus, or catch someone who may be symptomatic because you may not be symptomatic or the camera may not work properly or there’s ways to spoof it.”
“When we’re taking a look at bringing the tenants back in phases and wherever kind of the hot areas were where people congregate, we were able to use existing technology,” Reid said. “We really saw the value in that equipment that maybe was not recognized by the rest of the property management team prior to that, so that’s been a huge feather in our cap.”
While the property is not utilizing temperature screening, Reid said that the discussion was brought up in the early stages of the pandemic with tenants.
“With some of that technology comes some privacy concerns from the tenant perspective,” Reid said. “Some of our tenants are utilizing some of that technology, but within their own space.”
Added Reid: “We have not done it from a property perspective.”
Fine line
While there may not be a technological answer, Schonberger said that it’s all a matter of reviewing policy.
“It’s about writing service contracts, getting their vendors to declare they have not been traveling and doing the standard screening questions and getting them to sign off,” Schonberger stressed.
“A lot of our clients are trying to show they’re doing their due diligence while being a bit overwhelmed with everything else in the market right now and public health agencies changing mandates and courses every couple of weeks.”
Solutions to consider vary from enterprise grade IP tools, firewalls, remote access controls and virtual private networks.
However, the challenge can be those tools and technologies are expensive and require a skill set that a lot of people in the buildings world just do not have, which will continue to be an area of discussion amongst property managers.
“The response to COVID-19 from a property management perspective has probably increased everybody’s operational budget,” Reid said.
“I think in the next couple months we’ll get a better understanding of the direction forward so that has to be a consideration.”
ACCESS IN THE NEW NORMAL
How Enterprise-Grade Automation Helps Mitigate Risk in Your Facility
The global pandemic has brought about unprecedented challenges as organizations rethink how to safeguard their workplaces and keep day-to-day operations moving forward. This new normal has emphasized the need for organizations to have a greater level of control over the individuals who have access to their facilities. This is particularly important for major national and international organizations where thousands of individuals may be entering the facilities on any given day – a massive volume of traffic that would be overwhelming to manage without proper systems and procedures.
“This new normal has emphasized the need for organizations to have a greater level of control over the individuals who have access to their facilities” CONTROLLING
In order to implement a viable long-term solution for the workplace, it is crucial that organizations have systems in place to automate the processing of everything, and everyone, moving through their facilities. That’s why Fortune 500 companies, banks, governments, airports, and manufacturers implement systems such as iLobby ® – the present-day leader in the space.
Visitor management systems have become an integral part of day-to-day operations for businesses, helping organizations automate visitor data collection, tracking, and real-time reporting for security and compliance purposes. Where robust enterprise platforms are required, organizations turn to industry leaders such as iLobby – a system which is unique in its scalability and flexibility, helping companies quickly implement new policies and measures to adapt to changing circumstances. During the onset of the COVID-19 outbreak, organizations were able to leverage the iLobby platform to react quickly to new developments and better mitigate risks by implementing precautionary screening processes, which in many cases exceeded the existing government mandates that were in place at the time.
Redefining workplaces and implementing drastic new measures due to COVID has created a daunting challenge for companies of all sizes, but turnkey solutions such as iLobby have been helping businesses more easily adapt to the new normal. These systems give organizations the peace of mind that, through automated processing, each
individual on your premises has been properly screened prior to being granted access to your facility.
The platform gives organizations more control and introduces crucial security features that are a critical part of moving forward long-term. To help businesses further mitigate risk in their facilities, iLobby has introduced COVIDspecific features such as COVID Questionnaires, Touchless Sign-In™, as well as the contactless thermal camera integration FeverCheck™ to automate screening of elevated body temperatures – a first sign of a possible infection such as COVID-19.
iLobby consolidates and streamlines COVID-19 screening into one simple system, with an automated process that takes less than a minute to complete. Each employee, visitor, and contractor can be pre-screened prior to arrival and verified on-site when they sign in. Each individual is automatically logged to help meet compliance requirements and provide audit-ready reports. Furthermore, should an incident occur, the automated logs provide a digital papertrail for easy contact tracing.
Going forward in this new normal, companies will continue to see an increased need for greater control over safety in their facilities. From essential business meetings, to onsite contractor projects, we must reimagine how we’re managing who has access to our facilities.
Currently, iLobby is the only all-in-one system on the market that provides this level of robust features and gives clients the flexibility they need to have true control over their facilities. From integrations with watchlists and ID scanning, to COVID-specific workflows for screening individuals arriving onsite – iLobby establishes stronger end-to-end control over individuals accessing a facility.
Thermal camera for discreet body temperature readings.
COVID Questionnaires
Screen employees and visitors for potential exposure.
Screening
Streamline visitor data collection and verification to ensure each individual is authorized to be on site.
Control
Manage access to your facility by authenticating individuals in order to approve or deny entry.
Touchless Sign-In
Move the check-in process to mobile to reduce touchpoints in your reception area.
Tracking
Maintain accurate visitor logs, view real-time reports, and export records for any timeframe.
OPEN DOOR POLICY
Interest in no-touch and low-touch access control has piqued as end users attempt to keep COVID-19 at bay
By Neil Sutton
Two codes of conduct seem to trump all others in public spaces today: wear a mask and stay six feet away from everyone outside of your social bubble.
Another rule that may go unspoken but is now deeply embedded in our collective common sense is, don’t touch anything you don’t have to.
The access control world has been moving towards touchless solutions for years now but there is a new urgency to get those solutions into the market as institutions aim to make their facilities as people-friendly, and virus-unfriendly, as they can.
It didn’t take long after the COVID-19 pandemic broke for
the demand to kick in, says Darren Blankenship, assistant vicepresident, vertical market development, dormakaba.
“Yes, there has been a dramatic increase in inquiries for touchless, anti-microbial and any other solutions that can mitigate a virus or bacterial transmission. We are reacting to that,” says Blankenship. The company launched what Blankenship calls a touchless project in late April/early May, adding “a tremendous amount of emphasis” on touchless and antimicrobial offerings.
Dormakaba’s portfolio covers a wide range of access control solutions — including everything from door hardware to electronic access systems to pedestrian traffic management solutions, such as gates and turnstiles through the company’s Alvarado division. All are now being channeled into helping end users address virus mitigation, says Blankenship.
David Price, vice-president of communications and corporate development at Toronto-based Camden Door Controls, says his company is “back-ordered on touchless switches, like
“Now more than ever, institutions and facilities are updating how they clean touchpoints throughout their facilities.”
— Andrew Adams, dormakaba
everyone is. We’re ramping up production volumes to get in front of it as quickly as possible.”
Price says there has been a “quantum leap” in demand for touchless products and every new installation project the company is involved in is now specified with touchless switches.
Who’s buying?
As expected, the appeal of these types of products is broad. The ubiquity of the pandemic means every organization in every country is affected in some capacity, but there are some markets whose need may be greater than others right now. Senior living facilities are expressing a need for touchless solutions, indicates Blankenship, as are health-care institutions.
Likewise, property managers are looking for appropriate access control solutions in building common areas and washroom facilities, he notes. The hospitality industry also has a vested interest.
“Hotels are trying to open up again but they also have to build that confidence within their guests that they’re doing everything they can to mitigate [virus] transmission,” says Blankenship.
Another major market adopter, he says, is the education sector.
Price agrees, adding that some of the largest projects Camden is working on are post-secondary institutions. “We are working with large universities that are looking to change literally thousands of switches over from manual pushbuttons to wave-to-open or wave-to-exit type switches,” he says.
Low touch
Not every access control solution can be completely hands-free, but there are solutions that place a premium on low-touch to minimize their human impact or employ an antimicrobial coating or treatment that may limit the surface lifespan of the virus.
Andrew Adams, associate vice-president of product management, dormakaba, says the materials door products are made from have come under increased scrutiny. “We’ve seen the third-party documentation that’s out there in terms of which material can kill COVID-19 the fastest,” he says. “We’re exploring all options. If you have to touch the device, how can we ensure that our devices are helping in a proactive nature, establishing a clean facility.”
Price says Camden is also investigating the most effective materials to deter the spread of viruses. “We’re looking at both the antimicrobial sprays and applications, as well as copper alloy finishes that can reduce the lifespan of a virus from 72 hours to
Camden Door Controls’ SureWave family of touchless switches
An RCI 910TC touchless gesture control switch from dormakaba
much less,” he says.
“We’re ramping up production volumes to get in front of it as quickly as possible.”
— David Price, Camden Door Controls
One option is to deploy switches that can be activated easily without the touch of a hand, adds Price. Camden offers a 36-inch column switch that can be triggered with a bump of a knee, elbow, hip or foot.
In many cases, institutions are regularly and vigorously cleaning any surfaces that come into human contact, whether they’re door handles, push bars or elevator buttons. While this might be an effective precaution, it comes with its own set of challenges, says Adams. Using the wrong solvent may affect the finish of door hardware, for example.
“We’ve had to communicate how to clean our devices,” says Adams. “Now more than ever, institutions and facilities are updating how they clean touchpoints throughout their facilities. If you have to touch it, they want to have processes and procedures in which to ensure the people in facilities can say, ‘We’re doing our best to clean all of them.’”
Blankenship adds that dormakaba has retrained its sales staff to best answer these types of questions and is the process of building a remote learning centre to train staff, end users and channel partners about mitigation efforts. The learning centre is scheduled to open mid-August.
Evaluating biometrics
Much like traditional door hardware, biometric means of access control have been viewed differently in the wake of the pandemic.
“Contactless technologies like face and iris recognition are currently forced to adapt to the emergent threat,” says Dimitrios Pavlakis, industry analyst, digital security, ABI, via an email interview.
“Biometric AI and machine learning algorithms are pushed to new heights and extend governments’ protective, monitoring and screening reach. However, applications that rely on
“Not only are we able to do touchless biometrics for access control … but now also detect elevated body temperature.”
— Shiraz Kapadia, Invixium
fingerprint and vein recognition modalities are suffering a significant loss due to being heavily reliant on contact-only sensors, thus posing a great hygienic risk and severely limiting infectious control protocols.”
He adds that some nations that rely more heavily on biometric identification have “effectively terminate[d] all biometric-based access control, workforce management and attendance applications in certain high-risk regions.”
Shiraz Kapadia, CEO of Toronto-based biometric security firm Invixium, says he believes the market was already moving towards contactless modalities, well before the pandemic struck. The company launched its IXM TITAN product in 2018 — a multimodal face recognition device with fingerprint or vascular recognition as a back-up identifier.
Touchless biometrics were already preferred in some industries where using fingerprints may be impractical, such as mining and petrochemical, says Kapadia. But the pandemic hastened the decision for some organizations to look for touchless options. “Obviously, we didn’t envision that we will be dealing with a pandemic and the world will only want touchless in a span of three months,” he says.
He says Invixium has sold more TITAN products in the last quarter than in the two previous years since the product launched.
The preference for contactless biometrics may be long-term, indicates Pavlakis. “Contactonly applications are likely to suffer in certain areas including enterprise, health care, border control and generally any use-case scenario that deals with workforce management and access control,” he states. “Vendors will rethink fingerprint and vein verification modalities and governments will try to give additional emphasis to face and iris technologies.”
In addition to its SureWave touchless switches, Camden also offers a 36-inch column switch that can be activated with a knee, elbow, etc.
This will inevitably create challenges for law enforcement and other authorities that currently utilize fingerprints as a major means of identification, notes Pavlakis.
But, argues Kapadia, that may be one reason why traditional biometric indicators will continue long after the pandemic.
Inevitably there will be a decline in the market, but “I don’t think fingerprints will disappear, because there are databases filled with fingerprints. It will continue, it will persist.”
Integration with screening technology
In some cases, access control technology is being integrated with devices that can scan for COVID-19 indicators like elevated body temperature. Kapadia says the company recently made an enhancement kit available for its IXM TITAN line, which allows for the integration of a dual camera solution for temperature screening.
The solution links with the company’s software, IXM WEB, which is able to report on employee and visitor health, in addition to access and time tracking, and payroll integration.
“Not only are we able to do touchless biometrics for access control and time and attendance, but now also detect elevated body temperature and trigger different workflows. As an example of temperature-based access control, if someone is detected with elevated body temperature, the door will remain closed,” explains Kapadia.
He added that existing IXM TITAN devices already in the field can be upgraded to include the new temperature screening feature.
Blankenship says that dormakaba products are also adapting quickly to meet these new customer demands.
Aspects of its Alvarado line, for example, can now be deployed with temperature-taking equipment, real-time building capacity monitoring and even hand sanitizer.
Body temperature technology is a popular commodity right now and its hold on the market may last for the next few years as organizations globally work through the rigours of the pandemic, suggests Kapadia. But the appeal of touchless is likely here to stay.
“Even if the vaccine comes out and we are in a post-pandemic era, people will still prefer touchless technology, and they will be hesitant to touch common surfaces,” he says.
However integrators and end users choose to proceed, Kapadia says they shouldn’t feel pressured or panicked into buying solutions as a quick fix for what currently ails us.
“Make sure that you ask the manufacturer the right questions about the technology. Do your due diligence,” he says. “So whether you buy my technology or somebody else’s, buy something proven to do the task you need.”
Image courtesy Camden
Eisner Jeff Hannah Brine Hamilton Richard Leborgne Asaf Levy