Tightening up security

MENA Infrastructure asks a panel of experts for their opinions on security to identify the challenges of megaprojects and the influence of regulations on the region’s safety systems.

The Panel:
Hussam Al Haddad, General Manager, ATEIS Middle East
Adnan Musleh, Managing Director, T.H.E. Integrated Systems
Neil Rowlands, Sales Director, L1 Identity Solutions

INFRA. What new security risk does the increase in resident and visitor numbers to the region present? And how is the security community responding?
Hussam Al Haddad. From the life safety point of view, the more humans present in a construction or a building, the more security risks. New rules and regulations are in place to reduce the security risk parameters and enforce the construction market segment, with these new rules inline with the latest international standards. Looking at major constructions where a dense population visit on a daily basis, such as malls for example, the security authority enforces strict measures to integrate the systems and ensures that all the systems works in harmony from the fire alarm system, to voice evacuation with integrated public address and even the music system. As well as integrating other advanced systems like CCTV, allows the operator take the proper action in the course of emergency by guiding the public to safety via intelligible live announcements on the public address system, which is part of the voice evacuation solutions.

Adnan Musleh. The number of employees working within a single building has increased dramatically in recent times, which makes identity verification a necessity for individuals trying to access the building. This is where a biometric access control device plays a crucial role. In addition, it has become increasingly necessary to record every transaction in order to determine who’s in the building, not only for attendance tracking purposes but also in the event of fire or other emergencies. The Time App. Software from T.H.E Integrated Systems handles all the time, attendance and security needs in one integrated security management system.

Neil Rowland. The increase in numbers is an indication that automated systems must be introduced to replace the manual processes previously managed by human operators. In an airport for example, where thousands of visitors arrive and depart daily, we are witnessing how implementing a biometric fingerprint authentication technology can provide fast, reliable and secure entry for authorised airport personnel. In a similar fashion, we are also noticing that many companies are now demanding fast and secure access to their employees on top of the ability to manage their time and attendance. This level of sophistication can be accomplished with a state of the art biometric access control device, such as the latest from L-1. The V-Station 4G is equipped with multi-factor authentication, powerful on-board processing for rapid and accurate authentication, sophisticated storage, extensible memory, wireless connectivity and full-sized colour LCD displays to keep employees and visitors informed with custom messaging and is time and attendance ready.

INFRA. From commercial and cultural to retail and residential, the types of projects under development in the Middle East have very different requirements. What challenges do these various types of project present from a security standpoint?
AM. In recent months, the economic recession has affected all of us and in order to justify the cost associated with some security projects, we are now required to add more and more capabilities to the overall solution. Fortunately, the flexibility of modern biometric access control products such as L-1’s 4G series makes this possible. One of the best decisions made was to integrate access control, time and attendance using ‘Time App’. This saves time for the employee since he can gain access and ‘clock-in’ with a single action. For the employer, the cost savings can be significant with increased control over labour costs and a financial payback that rivals any other application.

NR. Environmental conditions can be challenging, especially for outdoor locations. For biometric access control devices, an IP65 enclosure can provide a partial solution, but for reliable outdoor operations a true outdoor design is needed. In some locations, electrical supply can be unreliable, so in these cases battery back-up as well as surge protection is essential. These requirements should be addressed in any outdoor solution implemented in the region.

HAH. Throughout the years, the progress of voice evacuation has kept pace with the architectural development. In old buildings rough materials, with lots of sound absorption factors are used, where the modern buildings of today utilise hard surfaces like glass, steel and marble as the main item to decorate the construction, and the Middle East is the same story. Straight to the point, acoustics is the most important factor that affects the sound intelligibility ‘Sound Clarity’, the more reverberant the space is, the more echo and sound reverberation take place, which means less intelligibility. Sound physics haven’t changed much since the old days, when the London Great Fire in 1666 destroyed the city, the public could easily get evacuated as the structures where simple and human nature to react saved the lives of many. Today, mega-structures present a new challenge. Finding the way out of a mega-structure requires a guide, and today sound communication is the main media to do so. While changing the building materials to become more absorbent might be a challenge in a modern design, utilising the proper acoustic solutions or sound design solution can save the lives of many, as the evacuation messages are clearer, the direction and information to evacuate the building when emergency is much faster.

INFRA. The sheer size and scale of the region’s megaprojects pose significant challenges in terms of security technology requirements – not least in terms of the integration of those various systems. How is this issue being addressed?
NR. Fortunately, the latest technologies allow a true enterprise class security system to be implemented. The L-1 4G series of fingerprint access control devices are designed to perform efficiently and reliably, even with hundreds of thousands of users, with thousands of access points within hundreds of buildings that could even be located in different countries. Enterprise database technologies such as Oracle or SQL ensure data integrity while fast ethernet and wireless LAN technologies ensure reliable communication.

HAH. While the bells used in the Great London Fire alerted people to the flames, today sound communication is the prime methodology to alert the public. The only difference is the effectiveness to provide clear information to the public compared to a ringing bell or the tone of a sounder. State-of-the-art digital signal processing DSP voice evacuation and an integrated public address system is the answer to most challenges in the modern buildings of today. The DSP allows the live broadcast messages to be equalised and tuned to enhance the overall intelligibility, by filtering the certain resonance frequencies that create major reverberation in the space. The integrated DSP in the loud speaker systems, with certain specialised algorithms even allow you to guide the sound output of the speakers, and control the dispersion output down to five degree vertical, and hence precise directive sound to the listener without scattering or bouncing from the ceiling and ground and creating echo, which reduces the intelligibility of the message dramatically.

AM. In some of the region’s megaprojects such as airports for example, we are seeing a need to support varying threat levels. Under normal circumstances it may be sufficient for employees to access many locations using a card only. However, at any point in time an event may occur that raises this threat level and these access points must now require increased security, for example, a card plus fingerprint or at an even higher threat level a card, PIN and fingerprint. The L-1 series of access control devices have this capability integrated within the 4G fingerprint readers, making this possible.

INFRA. What influence do regulations and/or standards play in terms of the types of security solutions being deployed within the region?
HAH. When sixteen people died in 1996 at Düsseldorf Airport because they had been mistakenly directed to the smoke toxic area, DSP was not a common technology at that time, nor had the standards ever been addressed. Today, international regulations are addressing the latest technology in terms of safety, and make no mistake; they are back to the simple physics equation to maintain an output result to the human being as an intelligible sound as possible. Most of the international and national standards are now related to the voice evacuation and public address systems and demanding an intelligibility factor Speech Transmission Index (STI) or STI-PA of 0.5 on a scale of 1. These regulations emphasise that any construction acoustics realise a reverberation time above one second need to be studied more carefully and particular care must be exercised on the Acoustic Study Modelling or the evacuation system design. Many available computerised solutions and software simulations can help to provide acoustic modelling indicating the sound pressure levels (SPL) and STI to meet the international recommendations and design. Such a simple approach can result in prediction and simulations to the results of evacuation speaker design, providing upfront anticipation on the sound clarity and intelligibility that the public shall hear during the course of emergency conditions.

AM. New rules and regulations are being introduced on a regular basis throughout the region and every market segment has been affected. For example, workers at construction sites must have the appropriate permit or license to operate specialised equipment and the working hours for many job functions are limited due to health and safety reasons. So it is now more important than ever to communicate effectively with employees on a regular basis. This is where a biometric access control solution using the 4G Series of fingerprint products from L-1, have a significant role to play. Using the dynamic messaging feature, a custom message can automatically be displayed for an employee once he arrives at work and is identified. For example, if his crane operator license is due to expire in three days time, this information can immediately be presented to him, via the LCD screen of the fingerprint reader. What used to be a simple access control device a few years ago has now become a solution that provides irrefutable proof of identity with the ability to monitor attendance and provide prompt communication of important information to each employee.

NR. Standards and regulations play an important role in identifying key requirements for a large project and configuring a security solution that meets those standards and regulations. Our clients need to have the ability to select the right components for the job and be confident that these components will integrate together. This has been an influencing factor in the design of our new L-1 4G fingerprint series readers. These devices can work with many types of card (such as Prox, Mifare, iClass and DESFire), can interface to virtually any existing access control panel using the Wiegand standard, can be networked using industry standard protocols (such as TCP/IP or RS485) and the user interface can be presented in the local language (text and audio). A compromise solution is no longer necessary.