Page 102 - Security Today, September/October 2022

Facility Security
The days of using a pen and paper to account for employees are long gone. A good emergency mustering system will integrate with your access control system and allow for designated employees to use a tablet to conduct roll calls. Who is onsite when the emergency struck, where they were last accounted for, and have designated meeting spots where they can swipe their credential.
Video surveillance. Facility security should also include video surveillance. This plays an important part in reducing incidents as research shows less crime is committed when premises are being recorded. Video surveillance also gives organizations real-time visibility to key areas of a facility - particularly useful if there is an emergency or some other safety/security incident.
Cloud surveillance using Artificial Intelligence (AI) gives total visibility and an outstanding audit trail. Video systems can be coupled with additional technology to tell you where visitors and staff came and went, what time they did and even who they were with. Video review assists in incident investigation and can be leveraged for pandemic-driven contract tracing.
With so much uncertainty in the world today, facility security has become a topic on most people’s mind. Many people are familiar with the physical security aspect, but security for an organization should
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go much deeper than that.
To protect from and prepare for security threats and emergencies, it is
best to think of facility security like an onion. Access control and physical security is like the core, and additional layers of security, devices, and applications overlap the core to further protect it.
Visitor management adds a layer of protection to ensure only people who are supposed to be there are allowed to enter, and those people are properly screened and accounted for. Mass notification and emergency mustering provides a layer to ensure the accountability of every human asset in your facility giving organizations a quick and efficient way to alert and count in the event of an emergency.
Video surveillance is yet another layer giving insight and AI to what is going on and where. These layers are important to the overall safety and security of a facility. Years ago, if you had badge access, you were ahead of the game. Today, you need to think much more about safety and security with so many natural disasters, active shooter situations, fraud, corporate espionage and disgruntled employees. Protect your organization by looking deeper than physical access control and look to “Layer 2” and beyond.
Steve Bardocz is the founder, president and CEO of Savance.
42 campuslifesecurity.com | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2022