Biometric Access Control – Next Level Surveillance Act

Examining two of the most eminent features in an access control system and door controller with slave reader operated through smart cards or finger punch for surveillance.

Anti Pass Back – this refers to a process of blocking unauthorized access of unregistered person through a registered employee.

It has been experienced in the offices that unauthorized people access a particular floor with the help of an authorized person with only one access card. In this once an employee who has marked IN by punching the card on access system will need to mark OUT as well to complete one cycle on IN and OUT from the floor, other wise the system won't allow the employee to enter or leave the floor, this feature in turn can block the exit of the person who has entered the floor illegally as he/she won't be able to move out from the floor now.

Feedback Locks – Following the list of various modes of security breach thru access control systems, another one in the list can be a physical barrier which can obstruct a gate from closing, lets suppose an authorized employee opened the door with the access card and placed a chair, rod or any other object before the door creating a barrier and not letting it to meet the armature plate to get closed. This act can make the doors open for everyone. What is particular about feedback locks is the siren or beep sound which gets installed with the doors so that if any object restricts the door in getting closed, the siren or beep sound starts ringing informing everyone about the suspicious act.

Star Link - Serving Clients on Customer Oriented Policy

Till now we have discussed about our technologies used in our devices and solutions. Also, we discussed about our unique solutions that revolutionized the world of biometrics. But this time I am going to throw a light on our one of the major projects accomplished in our blooming days in 2009, when Biometrics Attendance System was germinating and spreading its roots in India. The project was done in YAMAHA India at Surajpur.

YAMAHA wanted to streamline their employees at work stations. Since the strength of workers is very large, it was very difficult and hectic to manage them. Due to the mismanagement of employees, they were facing administrative losses, financial losses and time losses. So, they wanted desperately to establish any system in their company premises, which can reduce all their losses and streamline the work force easily. In concern about this, they contacted Star Link India to provide a solution and system according to their requirements. And YES! We installed devices, according to their requirement, doing all possible customizations to fit their work criteria. And it's been almost 6 years and everything is running smoothly and flawlessly.

We have provided a card to each employee, including their Date of Joining, Date of birth. The card was unique to each employee, which was used to mark their attendance. If any employee misses his/her card, then his previous card is blocked.

But, one of the major problems they faced was that, it was uncertain for them or a time consuming task finding the number of workers present at the work station in a particular department. So the production delayed as casual workers were having to take place of absent employees. Until and unless the exact number of designated workers are not present, they cannot start the line; this created a lot of problem and LOSSes as well.

Star Link India installed device with 25000 finger templates, to record the attendance of the employees. And, within 3 minutes of the start of the shift, a report of absent employees is generated. This helped them to designate the casual workers without any delay in starting work on the production line. The generation of the report in 3 minutes helped them to reduce the losses, which they faced earlier due to delay in starting work.

Then we did customizations in our devices to fulfill the requirement of YAMAHA, and that changes were commendable in 2009. Almost none of the companies were providing any kind of such customized features, but we did. Following are the few major customizations done in our devices to resolve their persisting issues:-

・ If any group of employees were late for a certain indispensable reason, then we introduced an option of REASON, which included different types of reasons like bus late, heavy traffic, weather problem or others.

・ An error report is generated which shows the reject list of the employees who attempted to enter without having their name in the card list. You can say in other words, a report is generated by employees who attempt unauthorized entry.

・ The validity of the cards of the employees was designated for a certain period of time for particular type of workers.

・ Other customization done was, Finger BY-PASS. The by-pass was done to reduce the chaos of the employees. For an instance, if the number of employees increases at any time, then finger bypass is done and employees are allowed to get the authentication, through showing cards only, irrespective of card and finger both. This took less time and helped to wash out the crowd of employees easily in less time.

・ When new employees are registered, the masking is done on every machine at a single click.

・ Also, when any employee is deleted, it can deleted from every machine with a single click. Multiple employee/ Multiple machine addition or deletion option is there.

・ Whenever any new machine is replaced by an older one, the masking is done easily without any hassle.

・ To reduce the manual punching, the machine is restricted to accept the manual punching.

・ And one of the interesting feature is that machine wishes HAPPY BIRTH DAY to a particular employee on his particular birth date.

・ Multiple card entry at a single time is prohibited, as employees used to do proxy punching by showing multiple card. This has been done by fixing a time interval between 2 card punching.

Additionally, many other customizations have been done at certain levels of requirement. But these were unique in 2008. After passage of time, we also installed 8 door access control in YAMAHA India and coffee vending machine solution is installed, which limited the usage according to the level of employee. And also our machines are installed in YAMAHA, Chennai.

At last, I want to acclaim that StarLink India always focused on customer oriented service delivery. We are always ready for customization our machines and solution according to the requirement of the clients, not only YAMAHA but we did this for many other clients. But since it was done in that time, when it was considered as a commendable task to accomplish. Now, for many of the clients, StarLink has become a reliable source of the biometric attendance system and access control solutions. So in a nutshell, if you are also looking to manage and streamline the workforce at your office premises, STAR LINK INDIA is the best service provider. Think upon, choice is yours!!

Biometrics for Door Access Control

Biometrics is the future of security and access control. We know how organizations are using employing the technology in attendance systems to ensure correct entry and exit recordings in the database. But biometrics is a field that doesn’t cease to amaze and remains largely unexplored for the time being.  A biometrics system uses unique human traits that vary from person to person to identify a particular person or a set of persons. These unique traits can be finger prints, voice control or retina imaging.

We all are accustomed to watching James bond accessing different gadgets and accessing controls to different doors with a touch of finger or a retina scan. Those there are some cool biometric applications for you.

Let us look into a lesser known application of biometrics i.e. door access control.

There are various sections/departments in an organization where access has to be restricted or limited to an extent. For an example, a movie theater restricts entry of the movie goers to certain sections by installing gates that require unique recognition. At these gates, the staff members can use their unique physical traits to request access and enter a particular section.

Door Access Control System

How does biometrics work in case of door access system?

First things first, a unique trait is decided upon to be used as the identifier for access to doors. Let’s say we decided upon fingerprints to be used as the identifier. Now we need to record finger prints of the staff/ people who are allowed to access the particular door. Once the finger prints are recorded, they are to be synchronized with the access control system in such a manner that they recognize the allowed identifiers without any lag or problem.

Now when a person presses his finger against the interface which observes finger prints, the system would either recognize a positive result i.e. matched finger prints, or negative results i.e. unmatched finger prints. In case of positive results, the door which is already locked door is unlocked and the person is granted access. If the result is negative, then the door remains closed and the entry is denied.

This is how unwanted access to certain sections is restricted in organizations that seek security and privacy. Similarly, with the help of biometrics technology a lot of tasks can be accomplished and simplified further.