Getting the right identification procedure for the right person was an extremely cumbersome process, according to Phillip LeClair, security manager at Connecticut Children's . In addition, the medical center's search for a better security solution was accelerated by an incident, after which officials asked the hospital to better handle visitor badging.

   
Visitor management systems – standalone or integrated – can create IDs as well as capture individual data. Besides putting photo IDs on smartcards that use radio frequency 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 smartcard.

A NECESSARY SOLUTION

Visitor management is an area that more end-users are beginning to find necessary. However, visitor management systems are not the same as employee access systems. 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. 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: 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. Not just the name tag but having information about visitors now is of prime importance. 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.

   
End-users can create their own watch list for internal use of disgruntled ex-employees or a spouse that is having problems or link into government watch lists.

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

BADGING INVOLVED

Visitor management is a really hot topic. Whether you print a physical badge or not is a separate issue. Most large enterprises do print a badge because once they’ve collected the information, they want to visually identify customers and clearly differentiate them from employees.

   
One new generation example is EasyLobby, which is an example of a software solution for electronic visitor management. A suite of products provides complete, fast and secure visitor registration and pre-registration, recordkeeping, reporting and badging. Visitors and contractors electronically scan their ID (license, business card, etc.), and all relevant information about them is automatically read and captured in a secure database file, including their photo and/or signature, the name of the person being visited, the reason for the visit, and their entry and exit times. In twenty seconds or less, the person is professionally checked in and a high quality visitor badge is printed.

   
The software module approach links to numerous traditional electronic access control and security management systems. At the same time, electronics access control systems offer visitor management, too.