Fingerprints can be scanned by this device and verified against the one on the photo ID’s smart card.

PHOTO COURTESY OF SYNERCARD

“That’s where it all started with the old Polaroid card – that’s what our industry used to do,” points out Bruce Bianco, president of photo ID software supplier Synercard, Gatineau, Quebec, Canada. “Customer demands and security requirements necessitated that our applications become more robust.

“Now the applications have to be more complex and sophisticated to handle the needs of our customers,” Bianco emphasizes. “Instead of being just an ID card, it’s a real credential that validates a person’s privileges and rights.”

Besides putting photo IDs on smart cards that use radio frequency (RF) technology to transmit information about the user wirelessly to readers, biometric information such as fingerprints and iris scans can be included to positively identify a user.

To determine whether the easiest credential to falsify – the visible photo – has been altered, the ID photo itself can be included in the chip on the smart card.

The question nowadays is how much security does your customer need? “Additional security has to justify additional cost,” declares Andy Lowen, product manager for access control, Checkpoint Systems Inc., Thorofare, N.J.

“A finger is free, but the readers themselves can be eight times more expensive, $800 versus $100 at the reader level,” Lowen estimates. “Biometrics are time-consuming, and the processing of a fingerprint template is not as fast as a card reading.”

David Heinen, product marketing manager for access systems, Bosch Security Systems, Fairport, N.Y., explains how fingerprint readers for photo ID cards have changed.

“With the fingerprint readers used five years ago, your template had to be scanned into every single reader, so if you had five doors, you’d have to scan your fingerprint into each of five doors,” Heinen remembers. “The new way is to put it into the card – it’s only comparing it to the one on the card, and if they match, you’re in, so it’s very easy for it to read it accurately and correctly.

“You’re assured the person coming through the door is the person who belongs there, so you’re not comparing it against a huge database of fingerprints,” he points out. “So the people who haven’t tried it should really look at it. It was much harder to do, and now it’s less expensive, easier and it works better than it did before. And the readers themselves are less expensive. Each one doesn’t have to have massive storage capability to read all those templates.”

Heinen points out the advantage for security dealers and systems integrators who sell photo ID systems. “The approach we are trying to take is that the technology is becoming less expensive and easier to use,” he notes.

“Fingerprint readers in particular are working their way toward becoming a commodity, and you’ll find them at a very affordable price in the future,” Heinen predicts. “Computer log-in with fingerprint readers will drive their price down substantially, I think.”

Photo IDs add an extra layer of security to access control systems.

PHOTO COURTESY OF CHECKPOINT SYSTEMS INC.

A ‘Finger’ in the Door

“Get them into the solution with baby steps,” Bayer recommends to dealers and integrators when they first approach a customer without an access control system. “A lot of times the commercial sales guy comes in and says access control on every door will cost $70,000, and the end users fall over. Don’t walk away – offer them an entry point to let them start getting the feel for what this solution you’re offering can do for them.”

After the customer becomes accustomed to a photo ID system for employees and visitors, offer them access control on just one door, Bayer recommends.

“Everything in our industry is about information,” he asserts. “The end users who buy our systems and use them, sure, they have pneumatic locks, but the valuable thing is not that someone can’t get in, it’s tracking who came in, when, where they went, and how long they were there.”

That step-up feature is offered by a number of vendors to help ease security dealers into the access control market, and their customers into a system that can be built up as their needs demand it.

“We have a version of our newest software that allows customers to have a complete badging system in terms of the software for under $500,” points out Jerry Cordasco, vice president and general manager of Compass Technologies Inc., Exton, Pa. “Now, that badging software they have is also our complete access control software, so if at some later point they wanted to add electronic access control, other than putting the hardware in, it wouldn’t cost them a dollar more.”

Cordasco agrees that some facilities only require photo IDs without any access control features. “There are people who just have photo ID as part of their security,” he concedes. “There’s no intelligence in them – there’s just a photo ID badge.

“If that same badge is going to be used to grant the person with the badge access to specific areas during specific times, then you get into this issue of what type of intelligence would be built into the badge of which it is part,” he declares.

Kiosks can provide self-service ID badge creation for visitors.

PHOTO COURTESY OF HONEYWELL

The Integrator’s Edge: Visitor Management

“Visitor management is becoming more and more popular,” stresses Rafael Moshe, product manager for Lobby Works, Honeywell Security, Louisville, Ky. “More and more regulations out there explicitly force a company to have a visitor management system. It’s a no-brainer to have an automated visitor management system in place.”

However, visitor management systems are not the same as employee access systems, Moshe maintains. “From a simplistic point of view, it may seem that visitor management and badging systems have a lot in common and are almost one and the same, because it seems all they do is produce a badge, but there’s a lot more to it,” Moshe insists.

He points out that visitors’ badges must be produced much more quickly than employee badges, sometimes within 15 to 30 seconds.

“Visitor management is more of a process management tool – it’s different from badging systems in key areas,” he observes. “One is that the key value of visitor management is the information it collects about the people, not just for a badge, but for all the information you need to form a security perspective about a person coming in.”

These include where the person is from, who is hosting him or her, whether they left on time and will return, whether they are foreign visitors, and much more. “There are a lot of things you collect about visitors that go way beyond a typical badging system,” Moshe emphasizes.

Not just the name tag but having information about visitors now is of prime importance, agrees Dana Milkie, general manager of Temtec-STOPware, Suffern, N.Y. Tempec, a manufacturer of self-expiring visitor labels, is now owned by Brady Worldwide along with STOPware, a visitor software supplier. This strategy follows the trend Milkie sees developing in the industry.

“The industry has been moving towards computerized or software-driven visitor management solutions in which the software links into a company’s access control systems, watch lists and other critical information,” Milkie notes. “We’ve seen the watch list feature become a pretty big trend recently.

“You can create your own watch list for internal use of disgruntled ex-employees or a spouse that is having problems or link into government watch lists,” he reports. “This helps companies create a safer environment for their employees, while meeting regulations.

“People want to be able to identify if someone is a suspicious person or threat,” he comments. “Additionally, businesses are beginning to link the visitor system to permanent employee software systems to help manage all of their traffic better.

“Visitor management is a really hot topic with the security industry – there are a lot of opportunities for companies to develop this market,” he insists. “A lot of businesses are seeing the need to have better control in this area. Complete visitor management solutions are a way for access control integrators to really differentiate themselves.”

Adds Honeywell’s Moshe, “Whereas before, people could just shake your hand and come in, now companies need to keep records of who came in and why and who they met. In cases where customers use visitor management and don’t print any badges, they need information about people coming in.

“Whether you print a physical badge or not is a separate issue,” he declares. “Most customers do print a badge because once they’ve collected the information, they want to visually identify customers and clearly differentiate them from employees.”

Visitor badge creation can be handled by a receptionist.

PHOTO COURTESY OF TEMTEC

Target Markets

“Visitor management is also moving into the low end of the market,” Moshe points out, referring to kiosks that allow visitors to create their own badges. “A lot of companies that have a large number of visitors are looking at this as a productivity and automation tool.”

But despite the advantages of computerized ID systems, the basic data entry functions still must be performed.

“In every single case, whether it’s a photo ID, mag stripe or prox or smart card badge, you still have to enroll the person in the database, match up a card number with the person in the central database, and design a badge for printing,” notes Lowen of Checkpoint. “Regardless of what technology is out there, you still have to do those three items. Badges don’t replace security policies in terms of enrollment.”

Some systems allow visitors to input their own information for badges.

PHOTO COURTESY OF STOPWARE

Sidebar: Making Existing Cards Smarter

“It’s the size of a 50-cent piece,” Heinen explains of the product from Bosch’s partner HID Corp., Irvine, Calif. “You peel off the back and stick it on the back of your card, so it becomes your smart card device.”

This enables the user’s fingerprint to be stored in the smart card chip, so fingerprint scanners can provide quick access with the employee’s photo ID card rather than waiting for a network to compare the fingerprint scan against a database of such scans.

“Instead of replacing all your cards, the adhesive tag lets you access newer readers with less disruption and keep older photo ID badges and convert to new readers,” Heinen notes. “We’re selling a lot of these applications where people want to continue using their old reader badges and go to a newer system.”

Another trend he points out is the use of holographic security overlays on photo ID cards to make them harder to counterfeit. Unlike the hologram that is prevalent on credit cards and expensive to produce, the overlay is much less expensive.

Heinen also declares that having a security key needed to operate a printer of photo ID cards improves security markedly. Plenty of room is left on smart cards for additional information besides fingerprints, he points out.

“Our engineers are always looking for opportunities where we can do value-added things,” he promises.

The same photo ID can be used for logical access to a computer system.

PHOTO COURTESY OF SYNERCARD

Sidebar: This Label Will Self-destruct in…

“The expiring badge starts out white, and via a chemical process, ink migrates up through the badge creating visible red bars that signal expiration,” explains Dana Milkie, general manager for Temtec-STOPware, Suffern, N.Y. “Our products are focused on anyone that is not part of the permanent work force within facilities. In other words, we help businesses manage their temporary traffic flow.”

Milkie points out that visiting salespeople usually are not in a facility for more than a half or full day making Temtec-STOPware’s standard product perfect for them. Construction and temporary personnel that are expected to be on-site for a longer period of time can be issued the week- and month-long badges so they do not have to be badged in daily.

“The LIGHTbadge is most often used because companies want to constrict or inhibit people from moving from building to building in a campus situation,” Milkie points out. He cites as an example a facility or university with several buildings that wants access restricted to one building. Because the badge is sensitive to ultraviolet light, it can be used to prevent re-entry once a person goes outside.

Software can track employees or visitors with photo IDs throughout a facility.

PHOTO COURTESY OF PCSC

Sidebar: Put Labels on Cards for Less Expense

These systems can print on removable paper for visitors or a more permanent polyester for longer-term use. For security purposes, the paper and polyester labels rip when removal is attempted.

“With general wear and tear, polyester printed on a regular desktop ink jet printer will be less permanent than plastic, but it can be more economical than a dye sublimation machine and plastic cards to print, even if you have to reprint the card a few times a year,” points out Peta-Gaye Latibeaudière, product manager, photo ID, for Avery Dennison Office Products North America, Brea, Calif.