Finger Key, Hand Key And Hand Reader For Better Access Control And Security

Access control security systems are installed at workplaces to restrict the entrance of any person to a building or a room that requires to be protected. For example, an office building housing sensitive government data cannot allow the general public or intruders to enter the workplace area. Only employees and approved contractors should be able to enter with the aid of identity cards, password, stored biometric identity, etc. The objective is to protect the integrity and confidentiality of the available information in certain areas of the workplace.

The sophistication and technology of an access control security system that a company installs depends ultimately on its security requirements.

History of access control and security

Kings used to place bouncers (guards) outside their harems and treasure rooms (amongst other sensitive rooms), so that unwanted subjects and officials could not enter without being stopped by the bouncers. The bouncers were the access control security systems of those times. Even nowadays burly-looking bouncers are employed in nightclubs and casinos to keep troublemakers at bay with the suitable security access control equipment

Locks and keys are regarded as reasonably good access control systems. With time, however crooks learnt ways to smash locks and produce duplicate keys, using which they could easily gain entry. Security gate access control became a must

Then, around the 1950s, technology became a part of access control and security when electronic locks were introduced. These electronic locks were regarded as a good security measure in those times, till crooks started duplicating the keys once again.

In the 1960s PINs (Personal Identification Numbers) were introduced. PINs combined the use of passwords with access control systems and were effective for some time. Then PINs started getting stolen, and soon the need for a better access control system was felt.

Smart cards, which incorporated individual access rights by encoding them -magnetically or optically - through identification cards, came next.

However, there were many cases of PINs, smart cards and codes being stolen and used to gain unauthorized access. So, in the mid-1970s, researchers developed biometric access control systems to fix all the shortcomings of the preceding systems.

Biometric access control systems relied on identifying unique human characteristics such as fingerprints, retinas, hands, etc. Since such characteristics are unique to each human, biometric security and access control systems are considered far better than conventional systems. Biometric security is very hard to break. Some of the biometric identities, such as retinas, are not possible to be cloned.

Around this time the use of passwords and encrypted data was also developed. Nowadays, biometric access control systems combined with encrypted data are gaining acceptance.

Types of security access control systems

There are different types of access control systems that are backed by varying degrees of technology. Here are some of the key technologies used in access control security:

Smart cards

These are plastic cards that have circuits embedded in them. These cards need to be swiped on an access control device to gain access to a secured area in the workplace. When swiped, the information embedded in the card is reconciled with the information in the company's database. Each smart card is backed by a unique PIN that the user has to enter at the time of swiping the card. Thus, smart cards are secured in two ways - by an embedded circuitry and a PIN.

Tokens

They work just like smart cards. But they can be used only once. Once their purpose is served, their password or embedded circuitry identification (stored in the database) gets cancelled. They are normally used to get access to secured computer systems or networks.

Encrypted keys:

They assume that you have a confidential communication that you want to deliver electronically but are afraid that it may be hacked or intercepted over the Internet or intranet. So you can encrypt this information and pass it to the network so that no one can understand what it means. This is where an encrypted key comes in. you can send it over the network to the recipient and then forward him a decryption key. The recipient then uses this key to convert them into the original information.

Passwords

They are used to gain entry to confidential information on computer systems or servers. But passwords are quite a weak access control system. They can be hacked and cracked easily by a professional. However, they are still widely used across the world.

Biometric systems

These are the most modern and most sophisticated of access control systems. Unlike the conventional systems they identify unique human characteristics such as fingerprints, hand, retina, iris, voice, etc., to grant access as soon as the unique characteristics match with the ones stored in the database. They are, considered foolproof, because it may be easy to hack a password, easy to retrieve information embedded on a circuit, easy to decrypt encrypted data, but it is very difficult and almost impossible to clone unique human characteristics as any hand readers will tell you why

Today, we are at a stage where we think that biometric access control systems coupled with the use of PINs are the best. Many years ago we would have felt the same way about ordinary locks. As we evolve, so does technology. And who knows what could be an ideal access control system many years from today?