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Integrate visitor management and access control

Gary Chalmers, CEO of iPulse.

One of the crucial aspects of commercial security is visitor management. Hi-Tech Security Solutions approached Gary Chalmers, CEO of iPulse, to find out who’s doing what and how visitor management has evolved from the tattered old visitor’s book that Superman filled in many times each day.

We asked how technology is changing this field, how it should change it, and what the potential impact of PoPI will be in traditional visitor management.

Hi-Tech Security Solutions: First, a broad question: how is visitor management changing and how has it changed over the years as security has become more important?

Gary Chalmers: It is my contention that visitors are currently the biggest security breach in most buildings in South Africa. While access control for tenants has advanced in leaps and bounds, including advanced biometric solutions, RFID tags, electronic turnstiles and CCTV camera systems, most of this is overridden every day as security guards and receptionists hold open a gate, boom or turnstile for visitors to walk through.

At best, most visitors fill in a desk-based register or complete a slip in a security guard’s book, yet no one really checks this information, despite the fact that these visitors are the biggest unknown on any site.

In the past year, changes have begun creeping in, with scanners reading drivers licences and vehicle registrations becoming available, and with a realisation that knowing who these visitors are is a key requirement for security. Systems like the iPulse VisitorIQ, which integrates directly into national databases such as BIOVault, allows for visitors to be identified, then verified within a few seconds, and to use their biometrics to control access to a site within a given set of time and access rules.

With the PoPI Act passing into law during December 2013, all of this is about to become a legal requirement and this will also see massive change being forced into this space by legislation.

Hi-Tech Security Solutions: How will the broader adoption of technology in the security market impact visitor management? Will we see the old visitor book replaced and visitor management being integrated into other corporate security processes?

Gary Chalmers: As mentioned above, PoPI makes the old visitor book not only defunct, but actually illegal. Technology will have to jump in to fill the gaps left by the current systems and I suspect that the next 18 months will see a flurry of activity as the first prosecutions for non-compliance start to filter through.

Hi-Tech Security Solutions: How should visitor management be handled today? What are the best practices and/or technologies that should be used for effective visitor management? Can you give examples of how visitor management could/should be done?

Gary Chalmers: Visitor management should be an integral part of your existing access control, making sure that one system is used to manage both employees and visitors/contractors. Implementing controls such as limited access periods, expiring tokens and auto-reactivation are key concepts that will be part of most new systems that want to be compliant with the act, and meet the growing needs for a properly integrated security solution.

Hi-Tech Security Solutions: Finally, given the cost of technology and integration and the required skills, is it not realistic that most companies will stick to a visitor book of some sort simply to avoid the cost implications of other solutions? And is this such a bad thing when dealing with people who are not regularly coming into your office/campus?

Gary Chalmers: Even assuming POPI does not make this impossible, in South Africa at least, I believe that this is extremely short sighted. Having limited information about the people who are visiting your site leaves you completely vulnerable, and most of the issues that are going to occur and which are not internally driven will come from people who have actually been on your site. Inaccurate, false and sometimes no data are the best you can hope for from the existing system, while a properly integrated visitor solution will give you all the tracking and security of your existing access control system.

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