| At the gate — an access control system with magnetic readers. At the entrance to the office — a revolving door with plastic keys. On the floors — electronic locks. Today it is difficult to find an administrative building in which some access control systems would not be installed. This trend is developing and gradually becoming an indispensable attribute of modern offices.
Surveillance mechanisms
The demand for installing access control systems has developed along a complex curve. Initially, at the dawn of the 1990s, electronic devices tracking the movement of employees and visitors could only be found in the offices of foreign companies. They were the pioneers, thanks to whom Russians learned about the existence of electronic «trackers».
For some time, interest in innovations was weak, since the heads of domestic enterprises preferred not to spend money on this kind of equipment, and limited themselves to the access control system known from Soviet times. Employees at the entrance opened cardboard «cards» in front of the guards, and visitors to the enterprises showed them paper passes. Often, especially in small firms, workers were known by sight and were not asked to show permission to enter at all.
Over the years, the need for access control has increased. However, the intensity of this growth was no more than 2-3% per year, notes Mikhail Bakhmat, Deputy Director of the private security company LEGIS, which, in his opinion, was primarily due to the low awareness of the population about existing technical capabilities and the low concern of company management about the personal safety of citizens.
A real boom in the security and information systems market occurred after the increase in terrorist attacks. It was then, at the very end of the last century, that Russia began actively installing access control systems. At that time, the annual demand for these devices averaged 70%. Gradually, the market became a little saturated, and today we can observe constant and sustainable growth, which, according to Mikhail Bakhmat, is no less than 15% per year.
Interest in access control systems is connected with people's desire to control the surrounding space. «Thus, employers want to know everything about the movement of their employees (who arrived at what time, who left when), to ensure their safety in the office, and ordinary people strive to control their private property (houses, summer cottages, garages), which are gradually being equipped with the same modern devices as administrative buildings. Today, it is difficult to imagine banks, industrial enterprises, warehouses and other premises equipped with the latest technology without control systems,» explains Evgeny Rychkov, leading specialist at NPF ELEKS CENTER.
Technical aspects
Access control systems are installed not only to protect premises from unauthorized entry, but also to organize the entry-exit process, as well as any personnel movements. The main requirements for these devices are convenience, ease of use and efficiency.
«If we talk about what access control systems consist of, then we should highlight four main parts: user identifier, information reader, actuator and controller,» explains Yuri Kuzmin, chief engineer of the Security Systems company. At the same time, user identifiers are usually understood to mean nothing more than electronic keys, contact and contactless cards and radio key fobs. They are usually issued to all company employees for permanent use, and to guests — for temporary use. By holding the access card to the reader, its owner easily and instantly opens the door to the desired room. In rarer cases, the employee's fingerprints or iris can serve as an identifier key.
Information readers are installed at the entrance to a room with limited access. This may not only be the central checkpoint or specially protected rooms. In some companies, readers are installed on each floor of the building so that an employee cannot get from one department to another without using his identification key.
As for actuators, they include electric locks, turnstiles, barriers, gate drives. That is, everything that creates an obstacle that protects doors, wickets, gates and entrances. And the reception and processing of all incoming information is carried out using special devices — controllers.
«If the access control system is carefully designed and connected to a central computer, it can be used to display graphic plans of the premises and the movement patterns of all employees. At the same time, security guards, watching the monitors, not only see a photograph of the employee, but also know where he is during the entire time spent in the controlled area,» says Yuri Kuzmin.
All access control systems can be divided into simple and complex. The most common version of a simple (or, as it is also called, autonomous) system is an electric lock installed on the door and a reader that is in front of the door. In this case, magnetic cards or remote radio cards serve as keys. Such autonomous systems can be installed in buildings of any size, and different employees can have readers programmed to access different rooms. For example, managers can have identifiers that allow access to absolutely all areas, and mid-level employees can have keys that open only a limited number of doors.
And in a complex access control system, not only do they use many readers, but they also combine them into one «organism» using a control panel. In this case, the time of each visitor's passage is registered in the database of computers connected to the control panel. Dispatchers working on this panel can change (at the direction of management) the codes of the readers, thereby temporarily restricting access to different rooms.
Useful tips
Today, there are many access control systems that allow you to solve a wide range of problems — from passing through a door and driving through a barrier to monitoring and recording the working time of personnel. «To choose the right system, you need to clearly understand the task at hand (that is, understand what exactly you need to get in the end). For this, it is very important, before finally placing an order, to study what types of access control systems exist, what tasks they are set for and how they can be useful in each specific situation,» — note the specialists of the company «NPF ELEKS CENTER».
And when choosing a company to install devices, you should request two or more options for the proposed systems with a detailed description, study them and choose the optimal one — the one that will be the best not only in terms of the price — quality ratio, but also in technical characteristics. “After the system is installed and put into operation, the implementing organization must provide the customer with full instructions for all equipment (in Russian) and be sure to train the staff to work with all devices,” advises Evgeny Rychkov. |
