Technology & Trends - Access Control

For bricks and mortar retailers, there’s no going back to how it was anytime soon.  Even before the COVID-19 pandemic and economic crisis, they had been fighting a fierce battle against online shopping and significant e-commerce players.  The high street has done a pretty good job of evolving over the years. From its humble beginnings in the late 19th century to its boom in the late 20th, it’s constantly adapted to meet changing consumer needs. The risk to retail But, i...

Electric locking is among the most ubiquitous examples of everyday security. Yet the complexity of electric locks and the advanced technologies deployed to provide simple, dependable and, for the most part, impenetrable locking often goes unnoticed. And that’s a good thing: when we take things for granted, it usually proves they’re fit for purpose. As experts in the field of solenoid actuated designs, we’re okay knowing that remote electric locking solutions are taken for grant...

In today’s fraught times, business continuity and success hinges on how you manage the visitors to your company. By prioritising safety and security, and coupling them with top-notch attention and customer service, you win loyalty and gain a reputation that will serve you in years to come. An excellent way to accomplish this is by identifying and implementing the best visitor management system for your company. And visitor management systems go beyond ensuring the safety of your visitors...

Today, 55% of the world’s population lives in urban areas. According to estimates from the UN, this number is expected to increase to 68% by 2050. As urban areas become more densely populated, the ability of law enforcement to uphold law and order becomes ever more critical to public security. It’s a challenge that must be constantly reviewed, and issues addressed where needed. One such area is the detection, identification and interception of physical threats, which has traditiona...

Security and surveillance applications require accurate, scalable, and cost-effective solutions. However, traditional security technologies pose many risks and challenges including frequent false alarms and high costs—both for system installation and ongoing maintenance. Because of the shortcomings of these technologies, many organisations have adopted 3D LiDAR-based security solutions to improve reliability, reduce false alarms, and streamline their operations. Integrated with cameras a...

What many security professionals are yet to realise is how COVID-19 has led to fundamental changes in security policies that will ultimately affect them. The introduction of medical technology, such as thermal scanners, to access control implementations is a new phenomenon. The coronavirus pandemic has propelled a new requirement onto organisations to conduct health checks – specifically, body temperature checks – at the door before an employee, contractor or visitor is given access...

The coronavirus pandemic has triggered an unprecedented chain reaction of border closures around the world. Even most of the 26 countries in the Schengen area reinstated border controls in an effort to halt the virus. When passports and all other types of border control were officially abolished 25 years ago as part of the Schengen Agreement, many of Europe’s border guards were re-assigned to the EU’s external borders or given other responsibilities inside their own member states....

A defibrillator can save the life of a person suffering from cardiac arrest – but it is most effective when used in the first few minutes of the patient collapsing. Studies have shown that a shock given within the first three minutes provides the best chance of survival and even one minute of further delay can substantially lower the chances of recovering. Public Access Defibrillators (PADs) were created to allow untrained members of the public to deliver life-saving treatment in those pr...

Healthcare professionals around the world are beginning to identify a range of COVID-19 related mental health issues that are certain to create new challenges for society. People are in serious distress about the pandemic itself, because of the devastating second and third-order effects of record unemployment and the overall negative economic impact. Safety and security professionals must be prepared to meet the challenges of a ‘new normal’. The new normal is not the old normal. Soc...

In a multi-faith society, individuals should have the freedom to practice their faith in complete safety. It’s taken a long time for the right to freedom of belief in the UK to be enshrined in law – the Human Rights Act 1998 protects public worship – yet there are signs that religious intolerance is on the increase. Hate crime offences on the rise Home Office figures show that hate crime offences in England and Wales have been rising steadily over the past six years, with 7,...

Stadiums around the world are still paralysed from the effects of COVID-19. Fans and spectators in masses have been absent from stadiums since April and there doesn’t seem to be a concrete plan on how or when they’ll be able to return to near capacity. The NBA recently opted to form a bubble philosophy concept in Disney’s facilities, although it’s been a relative success, it’s also been a $200 million temporary solution. This then begs the question: How long can st...

Across the world, the impact of the current pandemic has majorly disrupted how we function in our everyday lives, as a society, and the ways in which we do our jobs. Throughout, our personal safety and wellbeing, as well as that of our families, neighbours and colleagues, has been paramount - and adapting our day-to-day lives to meet social distancing measures has been a learning curve for us all. As we start to reassemble normal life, precautionary measures will continue to be put in place to...

The modern working world has evolved dramatically over the last few decades - from how and when we work, to the places we work from. Widespread internet connection advances, alongside the growth of cloud-based shared working platforms, have not only created the possibility for increasingly flexible working arrangements, but also fuelled a desire to do so – particularly among millennials. The preference for flexible working has now created a widespread need for more agile workforces, saddl...

Motion detection is a key feature of security systems in residential and commercial environments. Until recently, systems have relied heavily on closed circuit television (CCTV) and passive infrared (PIR) sensors, which both require significant investment and infrastructure to install and monitor. Developments in wireless technology are increasing home security possibilities. Few years ago, these developments led Cognitive Systems to discover that the wireless signals surrounding oneself can be...

We are slowly returning to normal after the COVID-19 pandemic that has swept the world.  The journey to normality is going to see a large number of changes, and the physical security arena is set to be front and center in both implementing changes to keep the rest of the organisation safe and within their own policies and procedures. Our return to work journey can be broken down into a number of areas for consideration. This is by no means an exhaustive list but will highlight the areas in...

When designing a security system for a site, the question of how it should be interconnected is often one of the first you need to answer. Should you choose a system that has its own proprietary bus network, which might require twisted pair cabling, or perhaps one based on an ethernet backbone? Both types of network have their advantages and disadvantages as discussed below. Ethernet connectivity Some security systems are based on a number of modules, and each module is connected to its own et...

As businesses, schools, hospitals and sporting venues look to safely reopen in a COVID-19 world, thermal imaging systems will play a critical role in helping to detect and distinguish skin temperature variations in people. Thermal surveillance, a mainstay of traditional physical security and outdoor perimeter detection, is now being deployed to quickly scan employees, contractors and visitors as part of a first line of defense to detect COVID-19 symptoms. In the coming weeks and months, the se...

Facial recognition technology has come a long way since it first came to market several years ago. Initially plagued with technical challenges and widely viewed as a futuristic solution, facial recognition is now firmly implanted in numerous consumer and business products and applications. New advancement in software, specifically in the areas of algorithms, neural networks and deep learning and/or artificial intelligence (AI), have all dramatically improved both the performance and accuracy o...

COVID-19 has sparked a flurry of criminal activity across the country, with a particular increase in petty crimes perpetrated against UK healthcare facilities. Bike theft, slashed ambulance tyres and stolen oxygen canisters are just some of the misdemeanours which have significantly grown in frequency since the coronavirus lockdown began in March 2020.  Given the constant, essential work carried out by health services, it’s clear the utmost must be done to protect its physical assets...

The experience of the COVID-19 pandemic has made us all more conscious of who is coming and going from our property. Whether it is a family home, business premises or public building, property owners want full control over access for protection and peace of mind. As a provider of access control technologies, we are seeing a growing demand for automated gates with a variety of access control systems. There are a number of considerations that buyers need to make when investing. And as an installe...

The unprecedented global impact of COVID-19 has taken its toll on all of us, but as cases of the virus thankfully recede, employers are now forced to confront how they can enable a safe return to work for employees. For many employers, this means they will have to carry out a COVID-19 risk assessment, redesign workspaces to maintain social distances, carry out more frequent cleaning, manage the transmission risk and find alternatives to touch-based security devices. Protecting workplace occupan...

Returning to work after the global pandemic will not be business as usual, and security systems are an important asset when it comes to helping to keep occupants and buildings safe. For example, video analytics can provide insight into how spaces have previously been used and can help to predict where and when occupants encounter each other or congregate. These foot-traffic patterns can inform settings for a variety of devices – like ventilation and temperature controls – and even he...

You are not alone: operators everywhere are asking themselves what are they going to do? How are they going to get back to business, and fast? How are they going to cost-effectively operate with all the new safety requirements that have arisen as a result of COVID? How are they going to ensure it all gets done for the safety of customers and staff? How are they going to protect their brand from the negative exposure of being identified as a property with a reputation for COVID? The economic imp...

Technology has played a vital role in how businesses have enabled their employees to work productively from home during the COVID-19 pandemic. For those of us who can do our jobs from home you only have to look at the ‘Zoom Boom’ to see how much our working lives have changed compared to the beginning of the year. Despite the fact that those companies that can are now productively and efficiently operating remotely, the country is now facing the next challenge in this crisis: how to...

The coronavirus pandemic has brought about an unprecedented crisis for businesses and individuals. It has also created a new normal, notwithstanding the disruption to our lives, ultimately changing life as we knew it. However, our resilience as humans will ensure that we survive and become better, stronger, and more determined than ever before. As I mentioned, both businesses and individuals have struggled significantly to balance the need for safety versus survival. But at AxxonSoft, we remain...

Today’s environment has evolved into something that according to some may seem unexplainable. But in the context of video surveillance, this is something that we understand. Allow me to shed some light and understanding in terms of security and why it truly is a necessity. Security is not a luxury, it is a necessity. An essential practice now peaking the interests of all businesses small and large. A video surveillance system is a cost effective option that does not require monitoring fee...

The safeguarding of premises through the monitoring of entrance and exit points has traditionally been a very manual aspect of security. Human operators have been relied on to make decisions about who to admit and deny based on levels of authorisation and the appropriate credentials. But the access control business, like many industries before it, is undergoing its own digital transformation; one where the protection of premises, assets and people is increasingly delivered by interconnected sys...

Across the globe, healthcare providers and facilities from care homes to hospitals and private clinics are working around the clock to reduce the risk to their staff and reduce the spread within their facilities. There are increasing reports in the UK that the virus has devastating effects in care homes, with fears that the US will be next in tow. The impacts on healthcare staff have also been stark with absence levels growing. In some health bodies across the UK up to almost 20% of their staff...

The emergence of smartphones using iOS and Android is rapidly changing the landscape of the IT industry around the world. Several industries, such as digital cameras, car navigation, MP3, and PNP, have been replaced by equivalent or even better performance using smartphones. Smartphones provide increasing portability by integrating the functions of various devices into a single unit which allows them to connect to platforms with network-based services and offer new services and conveniences that...

“Some embark on farmyard heists whilst others are devoted to back-bedroom chicken sanctuaries,” a quote taken from Channel 4’s new documentary ‘How to Steal Pigs and Influence People’. Whilst many think this is part of the positive vegan uprising, The National Pig Association have expressed grave concern of the glamorisation and condoning of livestock theft from farms. Wesley Omar, who was featured in the documentary, was found guilty of theft after...