The Hindu : Business : Automating physical security aspects

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jul 11, 2007
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Business

Business

Automating physical security aspects

Shanthi Kannan

Cogent introduces Touch Point
Running cost is 30 paise per label

CHENNAI: Data security is a critical component in an organisation. When companies depended on mainframe computers in the past, very few people had access to servers and data. In today’s network world, data is accessible from any PC, which is connected to the network of the company. Technologies such as Internet and applications like CRM (customer relations management) have brought data access from back-end to front-end.

There are a number of international standards like ISO 27001 and BS7799, which have laid down procedures for data security. However, the physical security aspect is at best controlled at the entry and exit points of an organisation. There is a need for automating physical security aspects so that only authorised persons enter the designated area. In a normal access control, ‘tail-gaping’ is a common phenomenon, where one person swipes the access card and multiple people enter the gate. There is no way for the system to capture the ‘tail-gaping’.

Organisations are keen on shifting to a fully automated and systematised process for all their operations. However, they seem to pay little attention to automating the activities of the front-end security desk. Proper handling of the office administration operations, especially with respect to front office activities, not only demonstrates the effectiveness of the organisation but also calls for attention to lot more complicated issues such as security and confidentially, says Md. Faizullah, Director of Cogent Innovations. In a conversation with The Hindu, Mr. Faizullah said with the growth of IT and banking industry, ensuring physical security had become a challenge. Though there were many products that addressed the needs, Cogen t had introduced ‘Touch Point’, a cost effective solution to those organisations which would like to have their office administration functions effective.

He said this comprehensive automation tool facilitated an organisation to do away with the manual process of filing up of visitor passes. The passes would be printed on to a self-adhesive sticker, which could be easily displayed on the person who visits the organisation. The main advantage was the printing of the photograph of the visitor, which would be captured through a web cam and printed onto the sticker pass.

Mr. Faizullah said this would not only do away with used tags but also help in maintaining records of the visitors along with their photographs. The product also had the vernacular translation along with ISO 27001 standard norms.

For all these, the company would have to spend about Rs. 1.50 lakh including software, hardware and web cam. However, the running cost for a company for this would be 30 paise per label. Now the company is looking at higher version of Touch Point with Radio Frequency Imaging Devices (RFID).

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