What Is The Main Purpose Of Access Control?
Jay360 is your best choice for guidance and access control systems installation. Get in touch with our access control experts below to explore your options.
Access control is the process of identifying and specifying who has permission to enter a building. Beyond merely entering a building, access control determines which parts of the building people can enter.
The main purpose of controlling access to a building or any compound is to protect assets and ensure the safety of the people who stay or work there.
Access control is an essential part of a modern business’s security apparatus that locks out unauthorized people and enables smoother entry for authorized persons.
Where people come and go without any form of security clearance, it is difficult to tell well-intentioned people on official business from those out to hurt or steal from you.
Consequences of weak access control
To stay on top of your business’s security, it is critical that you control who enters your premises. Importantly, and even for your staff, you must have an organized system that restricts access to high-security areas of your business.
For example, if the wrong people access your server room, your payroll, customer communication, payments, inventory management, and point of sale systems that your business relies on to run smoothly can all be compromised. Heck, your entire IT system can be hijacked.
When you look at it, every type of business has important installations to which they must restrict access. It could be storerooms for critical raw materials or high-value inventory.
For other businesses, it could be storage rooms for highly flammable or hazardous raw materials or toxic waste that must be handled safely.
Any mishandling or flouting of hazmat regulations could land your business in serious trouble with environmental protection laws.
So, for your business’s security, your employees’ safety, and to ensure compliance with the different laws you must comply with, it is imperative you establish an acceptable level of access control. You must be extra vigilant about the identity and intentions of the people you let through your doors.
The primary objectives of access control
Access control sets restrictions on who can enter your premises and where in your building or complex they are cleared to go.
But access control is not a single step. Rather, it is a system of steps with specific objectives. Below are the critical objectives your access control strategy must meet and will be measured against.
Identification of access control subjects
In access control terms, the subject is the visitor requesting permission to enter a building. It is a lax security system that lets people into a business premise without first establishing their identity and purpose of visit.
In the most rudimentary access control system, a security guard or receptionist requests identification particulars from all visitors. In itself, asking visitors to produce national identity cards discourages visits by people with criminal intentions who typically want to slip in unidentified.
Authentication
After a visitor presents their identification particulars, the security personnel must satisfy themselves that the visitor is who they say they are. If they aren’t convinced, the visitor is denied entry.
Authentication may also dictate that the security person establishes the purpose of a subject’s visit. If the visitor claims to have a prescheduled meeting with someone at the company, the receptionist may check to confirm if there is such a meeting scheduled.
At times, a visitor may not even need to proceed further into the building if the receptionist can help with the information they need. This may not happen if there is no clear policy on procedures for access control.
If the visitor has been identified and the purpose of their visit confirmed, it is onto the next part of access control:
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Authorization
Authorization assigns the level of access a visitor, whether they are a customer or employee, has in a building. It tells which parts of the building or facility visitors can enter.
Typically, the level of access depends on the part of the facility to be accessed. For example, high-security areas mean that access has to be highly restricted. Ordinary visitors, to cite another example, cannot expect to have the freedom of a nuclear power plant.
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Why you should automate your access control
To improve efficiency and assure yourself of tighter security, you will have to consider automating your access control. A modern, automated access control system removes the need for human intervention.
Security guards can be corrupted or, if you get a lot of visitors, overwhelmed and not be as thorough with subject authentication.
In a large organization, a manual access control system can exhaust security personnel and compromise security.
Automation, now made even better new with technologies for biometric identification, lowers costs and makes it easier and more efficient to manage identities and secure premises. It brings access control to each individual door, without a drop in the level of security.
Ready to engender consistency and efficiency into your access control and improve security at your business with an automated access control system?
Jay360 is your best choice for guidance and access control systems installation. Get in touch with our access control experts below to explore your options.
