Navigating today's security technology can feel overwhelming and difficult to make sense of. The fact is this industry is evolving very quickly and much of today's technology is needed, but business operators tend to stick with what they know, simply because of not understanding how to migrate what they have installed.
Surveillance, Access Control, Intercom and the use of AI, and Analytics are emerging technologies that are changing the way we secure our facilities. Surveillance and Access Control have been in use for many years and now companies must figure out how to migrate that legacy system into today's business operating solutions.
Access Control
Let's start with Access Control. This technology goes way back and has been in use in many forms over the years. Most recently, the use of Proximity, RFID and other forms of wireless, contactless credentials, readers, and controllers. While the basis of controlling access to a door is not changing the fact is that the equipment like readers and controllers need to get smarter and more secure to stay relevant and effective. These legacy technologies simply allowed the credential into the facility regardless of who is presenting it. This causes other forms or layers of security to be needed based on the business in question. Guards, video surveillance and additional costs are incurred just to allow the right people into the building.
These legacy technologies simply allowed the credential into the facility regardless of who is presenting it.
Today, we are using two-way communication from the reader to the controller. The controllers are using less cabling and lowering the cost of entry into the solution. Additionally, the use of secure credentials such as a mobile pass linked to your mobile devices, or smart cards, using multiple technologies behind a thumbprint authentication on the credential itself. Both help prove that who is trying to enter your facility is the actual person that is using the credential.
The integration with certain identity connectors such as okta, Eagle Eye, GSuite allow for a heighted level of security and lower management cost over time. Coupled with secure True Cloud based systems you can help to future proof your purchase decision. By using these type solutions, innovation can speed up, and your investment changes from heavy equipment purchases that age and require replacement over time to operational investment in services. This changes the purchasing decision and taking the time to see the operational effect it has on your business in time spent, power and management is key to fully understanding the buying decision.
Today's solutions also allow you to connect your HR software or other operational system, so that when access is removed in one system it removes it from the other. Lowering your total management time and ultimately lowers your operational cost.
Video Surveillance
The most prevalent technology when it comes to electronic security. We all see it in the movies and us integrators are constantly asked to make these systems perform miracles in lighting and movement applications. The fact is the gap between what you see in the movies and reality is closing very quickly. The use of AI and Analytics to provide real-time actionable detail is here to stay.
First let's talk AI. If you have ever had to search for video in a traditional system based on motion of pixels or input triggers such as a door event, you have spent hours going back and forth trying to find what you are looking for. Even today's digital systems are based on the VCR buttons of forward and back to find what you are looking for. While the images have gotten much better and the ability to identify perpetrators had improved greatly, only those that truly invest time in learning how to work the systems are proficient in pulling video quickly and when it's needed.
Only those that truly invest time in learning how to work the systems are proficient in pulling video quickly and when it's needed.
AI takes on the burden of identifying certain characteristics of the images and makes them searchable. For example: the color of a car, a shirt, or a direction of movement. All are considered a portion of AI. The use of AI allows the operator to search based on a time window in question, a person with a blue shirt and the image miraculously appears. This greatly reduces the search time for the operator and helps to provide actionable data closer to the time of the incident.
AI takes on the burden of identifying certain characteristics of the images and makes them searchable.
Use of Analytics in Video Surveillance
Analytics such as License Plate Recognition (LPR) help organizations capture plates, identify stolen vehicles or individuals of interest as they enter their cities and towns. LPR is also used in parking structures, and now businesses to identify orders before the customer even gets to the drive-up speaker.
Image bulling up to your local coffee shop and your plate number, vehicle color and time of day, let the business know your order? Our world is there and it's happening today.
Active Surveillance and Verbal Challenge
All this innovation opens the door to active surveillance and direct communication to the site in question. By employing these innovations in surveillance, we can now verbally challenge unwanted activity from a remote guard and dispatch the authorities when needed. This changes the expectation and puts you on the offence vs. the defense. Many businesses have an area that is troublesome that needs protection, but a guard simply is not in the equation. Guards cost a lot, honestly don't do much and many times are not effective in stopping the issue. Unless you make the investment in off duty police or other higher-level services guarding a spare vehicle in a parking lot is simply not effective.
This changes the expectation and puts you on the offence vs. the defense.
Intercom and Visitor Management
The use of intercom systems and having to manage visitors is nothing new. We have all seen or been "buzzed" into a building. That term comes from old door strikes that used high voltage to power a lock that buzzed when a button was pressed by a guard or tenant letting their visitor in. Then someone made you write your name in a book and then a person called the person you were to meet to let you know you have arrived. Over the past 20 years the receptionist has been removed from businesses, but the book has remained. Free for you to write whatever name you want or see who all has been in the building since the 90's.
Today, that is just a click, but the actual innovation is taking place in the cloud. Visitor management can be automated, so that when video intercom is used you are granted access, after your face and immediate surroundings are granted access from a mobile operator. Upon entering the lobby, you have a kiosk to enter your data, take a picture and the person you are meeting is notified electronically. Thus, keeping the business efficient, reducing considerable cost all while increasing safety and security.
Upon entering the lobby, you have a kiosk to enter your data, take a picture and the person you are meeting is notified electronically.
True Cloud Solutions are changing the way we operate and manage our businesses. They are providing us with actionable data that we can use not only to secure our world but manage our productivity, safety and overhead costs. As these innovations evolve finding the right partner to migrate your legacy platforms is key to overall success. If your provider is not having a conversation with you about the cloud, how it is evolving and it's effect on your particular operation you need to take a second look.
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