Access Management

RSS

Let’s be honest. The average employee probably doesn’t give his or her ID badge much thought. They hope that they remember it each workday, it gets them in the building and it’s fun to swing around when they’re bored. But new badging systems are changing how IDs are being used throughout an organization, adapting the piece of plastic from a utilitarian accessory to an integrated business tool.

Using metrics provides a quantifiable way to measure the effectiveness of security programs and processes. As the popularity of metrics has increased over the past few years so has the number and type of metrics that are used to evaluate efficiencies. However, without proper vetting, metrics may not effectively evaluate the process or program that is being measured.

Smart cards, like other steps along technology’s ever-evolving pathway, biometrics and megapixel cameras to name two others, share ingrained challenges. New stuff is often more expensive than existing stuff. Bring something new in and, often, you have to upgrade other gear that is part of the total system to make it all work together. Then there are design, installation, maintenance and training costs as something new comes through the door.

I was searching my email outbox archives the other day and I ran across a column that I’d written a few years ago about the use of video and integrated security systems. I was adamant that a camera be ruled out for an access control solution versus considering it as an optional feature. I still maintain that assertion. I’m not saying that every door should have a camera – every door should be considered for one – as an integrated component of your access control system.

Cruise ship industry institutes new security and safety rules, including more physical access controls, after accident in which captain is still under house arrest.

Major sporting events, like the World Series or the Super Bowl, are no longer just athletic contests – they are the new “destination vacations” and, for global events like the Olympics or the World Cup, sources of national prestige and economic drivers.

It’s a wonder that Mark Domnauer gets any rest. As Corporate Security Director for Adobe Systems Incorporated, Domnauer has risk coming at him in all shapes and sizes, and from any direction. Whether it’s a smartphone or tablet app, a game, video, digital magazine, website or online experience, chances are that it was touched by Adobe technology.

In my last column I wrote about the “Human Factor” of access control and identification. I now recall several negative incidents that I experienced as a security director involving security staffs screening persons entering the lobbies of hospitals.