Security & Surveillance · Service 07 of 11
Access Control.
You do not know how many copies of your front door key exist. That is the whole problem, and it is why keys do not scale.
Any business where staff turn over, contractors need temporary access, or some rooms should not be open to everyone holding a building key.
Every key you have ever issued is still out there somewhere. Somebody left in 2019 and said they returned it. A contractor had one cut because it was easier than asking. Nobody did anything wrong, and yet you cannot answer a simple question: who can get in right now.
Access control answers that, and it answers the question that matters after an incident: who did get in, and when. Revoking a credential takes seconds instead of a locksmith and a building full of new keys. Access can be scoped to the rooms somebody actually needs and the hours they actually work, so the cleaner is not carrying entry to your server room at 3am.
It scales in a way keys never do. One door today, twelve doors across three sites later, on one system, with one place to add somebody on their first morning and remove them on their last. Every event is logged, which is what turns an investigation into an afternoon rather than a guess.
- We map who needs to be where and when before choosing hardware. The policy decides the system.
- Door hardware, power and fire code checked per opening. Every door is its own small project.
- Access levels and schedules configured with you, so day one is not an empty database.
- Training for whoever adds and removes people, because that is the part you use every week.
Questions
Access Control, answered honestly.
Cards, fobs, phones or biometrics?
Cards and fobs are cheap and familiar, and they get lent to colleagues. Phone credentials are harder to share casually and people rarely forget their phone. Biometrics remove sharing entirely and make sense on high value rooms, though they cost more per door and some staff object to them. Most sites end up mixing: fobs on the front door, something stronger on the rooms that matter.
What happens to the doors if the power or the system goes down?
That is decided by design, not by luck, and fire code has a say in it. Doors are specified fail-safe or fail-secure depending on what they are and where they are, and egress always has to work. We go through this opening by opening, because getting it wrong is either a security hole or a life safety problem.
Can we give contractors access for one day only?
Yes, and it is one of the things access control is genuinely good at. A credential can be scoped to specific doors, specific hours and specific dates, and it stops working on its own without anybody having to remember to chase it.
Related
Often done at the same time.
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