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Empowered by identity

Whether it is entering your office or using a credit card, how we manage identity – and how others manage it for us – is going to be increasingly in the spotlight this year.

BioDentity's new identity-based security solution GARDS: Guard Activity, Registry and Deployment System, is based on the EVIM platform and uses identity as the foundation for an activity management system for guarding companies. The system uses fingerprint 'signatures' to confirm identities in relation to person, location, activity and time - what we call PLAT. Functionality within GARDS ranges from confirming on-site attendance, through to tracking what equipment was issued to a specific guard."

GARDS uses a Sagem MT2G mobile biometric terminal that communicates via GPRS with BioDentity's secure servers hosted at Verizon. Since functionality at the terminal is delivered by the server, GARDS can be configured to record the time and location for a wide variety of activities, with all of them being authenticated or 'signed-off' by a fingerprint.

Perhaps the most obvious application for GARDS is as a truly mobile Time & Attendance solution. The system overcomes the challenge of accurately recording T&A across the widely-ranging, multisite locations serviced by guarding companies.

The mobility of GARDS means that terminals can easily be transported between locations and quickly reconfigured to meet specific monitoring requirements on new sites. With GARDS, there are no fixed installations and no fixed configurations.

In addition to providing a fully mobile T&A solution, GARDS goes one step further by positively identifying individual guards through fingerprint log-on. During a shift, the fingerprint log-on functionality can record individual attendance according to a pre-determined schedule, for example, on an hourly basis.

The system's GPRS capability enables SMS or e-mail alerts to be sent from the terminal to confirm arrival on-site or to report that a particular guard has missed a routine log-on during a shift. These realtime notifications mean that the necessary responses can be initiated as such situations arise.

The identity-confirmation process is similar in principle to that used by EVIM to confirm the identities of visitors. A variety of data-sources are accessed, including HANIS (Home Affairs National Identification System), and various commercial databases such as credit bureaux. GARDS can also run checks through the South African Fraud Prevention Service, as well as criminal background searches via AFISwitch.

Fingerprint enrolment onto GARDS is via Sagem's MorphoAccess Enrolment & Management System (MEMS) which is already widely used across SA to enrol persons on Sagem-based access control and T&A systems. During the MEMS process, a link is made between employees' verified identities and their prints.

Based on data relating to person, location, activity and time, GARDS can deliver accurate auditing, monitoring and reporting functions to create an activity management tool that delivers a number of business benefits within payroll, invoicing, HR and operations.

For payroll, the T&A functionality has direct implications since it provides accurate, identity-authenticated data relating to hours worked. In addition to accelerating payroll processes, the data can also be used to address payroll disputes and to eliminate buddy-clocking, intimidation clocking and the problems of 'ghost' employees.

In HR terms, GARDS offers a means to accelerate the recruitment process by providing realtime verification of a prospective employee's identity. Subsequently, accurate identity-data is beneficial in terms of managing records relating to training, medical checks, induction courses and performance appraisals.

The systems' ability to provide 'proof of attendance' means that the process of invoicing for guarding services becomes faster and more accurate. This can also improve customer relationships by providing accurate invoices that are less likely to be challenged by the client.

Operationally, GARDS can be used to monitor the issuing and receipt of equipment, and such transactions can be ratified by fingerprint signatures on GARDS terminals.

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