Access Control Systems

Beyond keys

Mechanical keys have two problems: they can be copied, and when one goes missing you may have to change the locks. Access control replaces them with credentials you can issue and revoke instantly, and it gives you a record of who went where and when.

Credential options

• Proximity fobs and cards — the familiar workhorse; issue, revoke and replace in seconds
• PIN keypads — no hardware to hand out, good for low-traffic or secondary doors
• Mobile credentials — the phone becomes the key, issued remotely with nothing to post out
• Biometrics — where the risk justifies it, with careful attention to the extra data protection duties biometric data attracts

What it lets you do

• Give each person access only to the doors and times they need
• Revoke a lost credential immediately, with no locksmith
• Set time profiles — contractors during working hours only, for example
• Produce an audit trail of door events for investigations and incidents
• Manage multiple sites from one interface

Locking, safety and the law

Locking hardware must never trap people. Doors on escape routes need fail-safe locking that releases on a fire alarm signal and on loss of power, together with a compliant emergency release. We design the locking, the interface to the fire alarm and the free-egress arrangements as one piece of work, then test them together at commissioning and at every service.