Some companies and property managers are taking another look at devices that can control access to their buildings in the wake of the recent terrorist attacks in the United States.
Joe Parker, director of operations and engineering at San Diego-based SAS Access Systems, said there has been increased interest since Sept. 11 in biometric devices. The devices use body parts instead of access cards to allow entrance into a building or high-security room.
Retinal scanners use harmless infrared light to read the vascular pattern in the back of a person’s eye. With the retinal scanner, Parker said, “There’s no mistake that was the person,” attached to a personal identification number.
Michael Harlow, sales and marketing manager for SAS, said government facilities have been most likely to utilize fingerprint verification technology. To get through a door, an employee would have to enter a personal identification number (PIN) and touch their index finger to a digital reader to verify their fingerprint.
“Then the door opens and automatically locks behind you,” Harlow said.
Palm readers, which measure the geometry of a person’s hand, are popular access controls in airports.
“They’re used in every nuclear power plant in the United States,” Harlow said.
Banks are looking at biometric technology for ATMs and safes, Parker said. Post offices are considering it in rooms holding post office and safe deposit boxes.
“It’s really the way things are going,” he said. “Its security can’t be challenged.”
According to Paul Barton, integrated systems specialist for Greater Alarm in Carlsbad, “Biometrics are two to three times more expensive than a card reader.”
But, he said, “with the palm or fingerprint reader, you don’t have the repeated expense of cards or you can use a less expensive card stock.”
– Still In The Cards
Barton said biometric technologies are becoming more popular, but 85 percent of access systems still use access cards.
Elliott Nemerson, division manager at Access Professional Systems Inc. (APS) in San Diego, said, “Almost everybody goes with (card) access control. Biometrics is relatively cost-prohibitive.”
Nemerson said his company hasn’t gotten into biometrics yet. APS hasn’t seen a major increase in inquiries about the products it sells since Sept. 11, Nemerson added.
The primary business of APS is parking access and revenue control systems. APS is also involved in building access and perimeter control.
Vehicles and people are monitored through an access system attached to a computer, tracking the comings and goings of personnel in a building.
“It establishes a paper trail on disk,” Nemerson said. “The employee uses an access card to get in and out of specific access areas.”
Access devices, including biometrics and access card systems, allow a time zone to be stored with an employee’s access information, limiting the hours during which the person is allowed in the building or room. Also, access can be limited only to certain doors.
Systems can be set up so that operators are able to lock a person out. Systems can also be arranged so that someone sitting at a management desk can see the person via closed circuit television and compare the live video image to a photograph on a computer screen.
Greater Alarm deals in basic fire, life and safety devices, including building access systems. The company provides access and proximity card devices, palm and fingerprint biometric devices, and closed circuit TV with facial recognition software.
Barton said Greater Alarm has seen increased demand since Sept. 11.
“It’s general interest in building access systems, because it allows you to control who comes in the doors and when,” he said.
– Interest Up For Monitoring
Property managers are becoming more interested in the ability to monitor their facilities from remote locations, via the Internet, Barton said.
“We have one customer with a palm reader and closed circuit TV and their security’s monitored over the Internet in Texas,” Barton said.
Facial recognition systems analyze the geometry of a person’s face. The same type of technology can be used in parking garages to recognize license plates.
APS is working on a new type of security called object character recognition, which uses cameras to identify people or objects, Nemerson said.
“A person or vehicle is identified by its unique characteristics. It’s important to airport security and parking,” Nemerson said.
APS installed a revenue control system at the Birmingham International Airport in Birmingham, Ala., last year, and is working on plans for license plate recognition equipment there.
“Now it will match a photo of the license plate with the car, to make sure there’s no license plate swapping,” Nemerson said.
Object character recognition technology for identifying faces would primarily be used by governmental agencies and very high security facilities, like nuclear power plants, Nemerson said. It wouldn’t be appropriate for a traditional office building, he said.
There has been an increase in the number of people interested in cameras, Barton said. Airports have been especially interested in facial recognition software, he said.
“It identifies people, for instance, that companies might not want on their grounds,” Barton said. Casinos use it to identify card sharks, as well as high rollers.
The advantage of facial recognition technology is that it recognizes people in disguise. Even in disguise, Barton said, the measurements of a person’s face are the same.
Parker said face recognition technology is not quite ready for widespread use because computers are still being programmed to recognize a person as their facial geometry changes, which changes faster than hands, fingerprints or retinas, he said.
Voice recognition technology digitizes the wave patterns of a voice. Parker said the technology is available, but is not quite ready because it can still be fooled by a digital recording of someone’s voice.
Hands-free technologies are also available but not very widespread, Nemerson said. Those devices require an employee to wear a card, which is read by a sensor around a door.
APS, located in Mira Mesa, has been in business since 1977. The company started as a garage door installer and evolved into primarily parking access devices.
SAS is a 12-year-old company, which started as a parking facility equipment company. A few years ago, the company evolved into more high-tech parking facility access equipment and has a new focus on building access technologies.
Greater Alarm is a 20-year-old company, headquartered in Irvine. The company opened its Carlsbad office five years ago.
