Security? Yeah Right!

Software companies, BPO’s and other medium to big organizations across the country have adopted stringent security measures. (actually this is nothing new. They’ve been having this for quite some time but its only recently that I’ve been annoyed to the extent of me having to write this.) They’ve basically outsourced the work to various security services companies in the country. Thats good news. However, whats really annoying is the processes that these companies adopt in the name of security.

The ‘process’ begins the moment you step into the facility. Image capturing devices including camera-phones aren’t allowed in the premises. If you happen to have one, you need to surrender the phone before entering the facility and take it back on your way out. This is pathetic. For a person who’s work depends a lot on telephone, this really put me off. I’d rather ask the person I need to meet to come out instead. By asking visitors for phones, they are indeed inviting trouble. I was tempted to take some shots of the facility just for the heck of it and publish it online.

Then comes the register entries. Signing registers is a must and not doing so is almost sacrilige; before you actually get to the purpose of your visit. If your work involves moving to different floors within the same building, you need to sign-in and sign-out each time you move from one floor to another. They do this to track movement of visitors or contractors within the facility. All I see is, stack of register with pages and pages of crap. Small wonder, why forests in the country are fast depleting.

The point is, one needs to spend almost 15-20 minutes complying with these security procedures for a work/meeting that would hardly take 5 minutes. And this is repeated every time you walk into the building. A popular argument would be that this helps keeping trouble out. But does it really? Here’s the twist.

This particular organization (an MNC) that I’ve been frequenting for the past few weeks, have security personnel that work on a shift basis. I know most of them because of my frequent visits (duh!) and as such, they are quite easy with me on a few of the procedures. Now I happily carry my cameraphone, skip signing a few registers and even drink coffee whenever I feel like. Thats the level of security that we were talking about earlier. Now all I need is some RDX, a liquid that aids explosives (whatever that may be) and the media informed before setting off the bomb. The next morning, as we all can expect, the bombing will be somehow linked to Lakshar-e-Toiba/Al-Qaeda and the current peace process with Pakistan will come to an indefinite halt.

Ok, so whats the solution?

Instead of having a lot of security personnel hovering around each floor and inviting trouble from otherwise normal people (like me), they can reduce the workforce and increase the use of technology. Every visitor could be given a smartcard embedded with an RFID tag that gives them controlled access within the facility. Simply put, this means giving access rights to areas in the facility that the visitor wants to go. Other areas will be not be given access without prior approval. The access rights can be remotely programmed on to the smartcard. So all you need is a single card for entering the premises.

From the security company’s view, they can map the location of the visitor in real-time and even set alarms or activate closed circuit cameras upon intrusion into non-designated areas. The security company can maintain a movement log in a database and thus minimize use of paper. On leaving the premises, the visitor hands over the smartcard.

All this is an effecient and time-saving way of doing the same thing. It only invloves utilizing available technologies and making things work better.