How Can Real-Time Tracking & Response Provide Greater Security?

Security systems are much more than just card scanners and badge readers with today's technology. There is a wealth of information and capability available to secure people and company assets. Extensive Wi-Fi coverage, GPS location devices, and smart badges allow for an unprecedented level of granularity and response to secure facilities, systems, and even individual rooms within a building. What are some of the advances that you can utilize?

Asset Tracking

It used to be that you had an asset number that you put on an asset and that was the extent of your tracking. Basically, you knew how to inventory the asset to see if it was there or gone.

Now, you can tag those assets so that you know the location of that asset at any given time. You can track the movement of a laptop, medical scanner, or other piece of equipment based upon the broadcast signal from the asset tag. The tag utilizes your facility's Wi-Fi or GPS locators to provide a continual location.

If a critical asset disappears from the system, you can discover its last known location and send a security team to see what happened to the asset. If your badges have asset tags, you can put together a list of people who were near the asset at the time of its disappearance.

Security Access

Badge-level security is not new. Using the data from that security to provide appropriate access to restricted areas is also not new. But, being able to restrict a person from entering a room who may follow another person through a door is a much more recent capability.

Badges that have asset tags allow security systems to "see" where a badged person is at any given time. If a person tries to go into a room where they don't have the correct access, security can be alerted and dispatched to address the situation. If the security system is tied into lights or warning sounds, the lights and sounds can be automatically activated to indicate a breach has occurred.

Even visitor badges could be tagged to limit visitor access to restricted areas. If a visitor has to go into a restricted area, special clearance could be granted for that particular badge on an ad-hoc basis.

Drone Monitoring

One of the most exciting advances is the use of drones for security management. If suspicious activity is detected, there are some companies that now provide autonomous drones that can be sent to check out the activity. These drones send back live data feeds to the security systems to provide real-time visibility to the security station.

Are all of these advance easy to set up and use? Many of them will take some work to configure correctly, set up policies and rules, and integrate into a company's security structure. To learn more, contact companies that provide access control systems.