Satish Mohan, Head-Engineering, Red Hat India
We never sidestep security-smart cards are used across our seven locations in India. Travel being frequent, it’s mandatory for employees to carry individual smart cards. Entry into the main office is enabled through smart cards. Our server facility is secured through a two-step access mechanism-using smart cards and biometric fingerprinting for enhanced security.
Only select personnel have secure access to the server facility. To log in, employees swipe the smart card and press their thumbs on the biometric fingerprint reader. Having a LAN interface, the smart card and biometric fingerprint devices can be networked without a computer.
Apart from employee identification, log in and log out data, ‘timestamps’ are recorded in a centralised Human Resource Information System that captures online, real time data generated nationwide, which can be accessed by the HR department from anywhere. Since they are long lasting and virtually maintenance free, smart cards are indeed a smart choice.
Piyush Gupta, GM Operations, Television Eighteen
At present, the deployment of access cards-proximity or smart-is limited. However, we are in the process of installing the access control system across the company. Since we are a television channel (CNBC-TV18) and a production house, we have a fair amount of expensive equipment and gadgetry that needs to be kept away from unauthorised individuals.
Another problem is that certain areas in the office that are not in use through the day end up becoming meeting points, specifically server rooms and editing bays. Access control systems and smart cards will enable us to track the movement of employees in our restricted areas.
Installing a smart access system with restricted entry levels would prevent this occurence. If need be, the concerned departments could also get a report of an individual’s movement in office premises.
This would obviously increase productivity. As far as TV18 is concerned, rights to access different areas are decided by the Administration department, while the implementation is done by the Systems and IT department.
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Dipayan Kar, Manager-Sales, Zicom Security Services
Zicom provides various corporations with security solutions. With regard to access control systems, the most common ones in use are proximity and smart cards. A great deal of information regarding the bearer can be carried on a smart card. They can also be programmed and customised depending on the client’s need.
We have set up and are maintaining the entire access and smart system at iFlex. Here, apart from the usual attendance records, the card also carries canteen credits of an employee. This allows an employee to simply hold his card against a reader and the requisite amount is deducted. The card, of course, is topped up with the employee’s canteen allowance at the beginning of every month.
The normal employee attendance and access permissions are also programmed into the card’s chip and because of the centralised nature of administration, records of an employee are constantly updated in real time.
G Gopinath, Director of Rooms, Grand Hyatt (Mumbai)
The Grand Hyatt has been using smart cards since March 2004. Although our staff doesn’t use these cards for their daily access and attendance, we use them in guest rooms and residences.
The card is used as a room key that allows touchless opening of the door. By using this technology, hotel management can trace up to 150 opening and closing actions of a particular door. Due to the details entered of the opening and closing action, valuable statistical data can be gained. Lock installation schedules can be created and administrated flexibly with very little effort. The connection to other data pools via suitable interfaces enables a more cost-effective total management of the hotel due to faster sharing of information between departments.
The system also provides for a very high level of security. Also, every key is easy to replace and we can disable a lost key easily. This is the latest in room security and service and is in use at all the top hotels worldwide. Entire system is monitored by the Security department and administered by Front Office department.
Captain Sailesh, Head Security Systems, Standard Chartered
Any security or access system set up for an organisation like ours needs to perform multiple functions. We have a number of critical locations on our premises. Each has various levels of restrictions.
It is therefore imperative for us to have these restrictions embedded into the system.
All the staff members at StanChart carry an Access Control card. This takes care of the daily attendance muster and also generates reports on areas visited by an individual. The card readers situated at various critical and strategic locations in our office are connected to a central server where these reports can be generated.
These reports come in handy when it comes to ensuring that we have a secure set-up, which is a must for a bank, and also with respect to complying with the various Audits we conduct.