The security industry is going through a period of profound change worldwide, and the access control sector isn’t immune. Over the last five years, technology advances have improved and strengthened our industry as we combat more sophisticated bad actors with cutting-edge technology.
At the forefront of this battle are our local, state, and national governments as they are always high on the potential target lists. The Centre for Protection of National Infrastructure (CPNI), a United Kingdom government authority that provides protective security advice to businesses, goes so far as to state: “Generally higher levels of effective and visible protective security at national infrastructure sites are likely to act as a deterrent to terrorists, who increasingly favour soft targets that allow them to achieve their aims with a greater chance of success. Nevertheless, with the continual diversification of the threat, the ambition and capability of terrorist groups to target UK infrastructure are likely to continue to evolve.”
When approached at a national or regional level, the simplest way to achieve consistent access control and identity management is through the creation of federal regulatory and compliance programs, ordinances, and statutes that ensure a consistent level of protection across a multitude of threat vectors and attack surfaces. Organizations like the CPNI in the UK are responsible for “providing resources, guidance, and expert advice to help protect and keep your business secure from external threats”, while FICAM in the United States provides a range of security statutes and regulations related directly to identity and access control. Working with these organizations, and using technologies that are certified by them, ensures that your facility is maintaining the national standard in security practices.
The primary benefit of having a well-maintained set of security policies and practices is that a safer workplace is delivered for the personnel that is often the first interaction for visitors to a site, especially in the current scenario where multi-factor authentication should be standard. That multi-factor authentication should also be applied across multi-tenant environments, common to government infrastructure to improve efficiency across multiple sites, but also to create a more flexible method of managing personnel movement between those sites as necessary.
That future is bright when it comes to innovation. Still, there is a balancing act to maintain between rapid change and control and coordination, and this is the path that regulators are being forced to navigate. Of course, there is still room for improvement, but creating regulations that account for innovation and interoperability will serve to set the governments of the world up for future adoption of emerging solutions and to truly take advantage of the renaissance that the physical security industry is undergoing currently. Working with innovative vendors that play by the rules will ensure that you are up to scratch as you undergo physical security transformation.
Resources
https://www.identiv.com/community/2020/08/14/ifsec-global-protecting-cpni/
For more information, contact the EMEA team directly at emea_pacs_sales@identiv.com.