Guide to Touchless Access Control Systems

COVID-19 infections continue to grow all over the world, and been ongoing for over 6 months at the time of writing this. At Swiftlane, we have built the most advanced touchless access technology, that provides a comprehensive solution for touchless access control. In this post, we will cover the key aspects of setting up touchless access control and later talk about how Swiftlane outperforms on those goals.

Key Components of Setting up Touchless Access Strategy

When it comes to COVID-19 preparation for touchless access control, there are 6 different pillars of this strategy:

Touchless Authentication

You want to make sure you are authenticating yourself to the door in a touchless manner. This means no pin pads or common surfaces that people might touch. Key card readers are wireless and work with nearby rfid proximity, however there are still issues with handling out new cards or lost cards. Especially post COVID-19, handling a replaced card might mean either in person exchange of cards, or shipping individual cards to every employee, which can get very expensive.

Door Unlock

Door handles are one of the most commonly used surfaces in a building. You can setup automatic door operators, in order to provide an automatic door unlock experience. As soon as someone is granted access, the door opener is sent a wired / wireless signal to pull the door open.

Remote Access Grant

With key cards, you have two options to grant access to someone:

• Meet them in person, which increases exposure of both parties to COVID-19
• This also increased the reliance on being in the office all the time in order to handle access management
• Shipping the cards: With people working in a remote first manner, it means you need ship cards to people constantly, that adds shipping costs and inconvenience

Remotely Revoking Access

When someone quits or is terminated, or in a tenant moves out in a multi tenant building, getting back key cards can be challenge.

• Most key cards systems run inside the building only, which means you would need to go into to the office building to revoke the card access
• You would need to arrange for the pickup of the card from the employee, or pay for additional cards instead
• You incur costs for shipping those cards back to the company

Automatic Door Openers

Automatic door openers are commonly used for ADA compliant entrances, in order to prop the door open when the card is swiped. With COVID-19, you should consider installing and activating automatic door operators for all employee and visitor access. Your access control system should work alongside the automatic door openers, to provide door opens when a person is recognized.

Touchless Visitor Access Management

Most businesses completely shut down visitor access for the early part of COVID. As we get beyond the 6 month mark, companies are starting to bring in critical visitors, contractors and clients back to their sites. Previous generation of visitor management systems involved having a tablet on the front desk where people check in. This is going away in favor of touchless visitor management systems. Touchless visitor management involves:

• Sending a visitor access code ahead of time via email or text
• When a guest arrives, they receive a form via a link on text, and have to fill in their information on their personal device
• Once they fill the information they can sign the NDA for the company right from their phone
• This will complete the check in process on their phone, instead of a shared tablet that everyone is using.

Swiftlane Touchless Access Experience

At Swiftlane, we have been working on setting up touchless access control systems, and we decided to create this comprehensive overview of setting up touchless access control for your employees, tenants and visitors, in order to improve COVID-19 safety and unlock a modern positive experience.

Touchless Access Control Via Mobile and Face Unlock

Swiftlane’s is a modern access control system, that provides two different formats of touchless access control options: face recognition unlock and mobile access unlock.

Face Unlock

Simply walk up the door, look at the Swiftlane device, and the door unlocks. You can in less than 1 second. And it’s completely hands-free. If you are wearing a mask, simply slide it down for one second and the door unlocks. This form of access is so seamless that 80% of users use face unlock.

• Walk up to the door, look at the reader and the door unlocks
• Enrollment can happened remotely from the users’ phone, using the Swiftlane app
• Once enrolled, users can use face recognition access across any number of doors or buildings
• 2D and 3D data check to prevent photo and video attacks

Smartphone Mobile Access Control

Swiftlane’s mobile unlock provides a convenient and ubiquitous form of access using your phone. Using the Swiftlane app, you can open doors with a click. No need to remember the badge, touch a pin pad, or tap a card reader.

• Send access credentials via email, remotely
• Users can unlock doors from the Swiftlane app
• Send a signal when near the door, using Bluetooth Low Energy
• Send a remote unlock via cellular from anywhere, as an admin

Cloud-Based Remote Access Management

Swiftlane’s cloud-based access control provides state of the art remote first access management. It has all the tools to allow you to manage access to users from anywhere, and not require being present in the office or server rooms.

• Instantly grant or revoke access to users from your Swiftlane admin dashboard
• Automate the enrollment of users using systems like G Suite, Azure Active Directory and OKTA
• Users can enroll themselves using the Swiftlane app
• Manage access control across large number of doors and locations
• Real time activity feed

Integration with Automatic Door Openers

Swiftlane integrates with all the commonly available automatic door operators, in order to provide door opens when a person is recognized. You can see the video above to see this in action. This ensures that you can avoid touching any surfaces and get the maximum level of safety.

Remote Guest Management using Swiftlane Video Intercom

Swiftlane’s unique reader comes with built in two-way video intercom, that streamlines visitor management.

• Visitors can start a video call from any door
• Connect with two way or one way video with the front desk or a tenant from the directory
• Remotely unlock the doors
• Envoy integration so that your visitors can automatically get temporary access to lobby doors

Learn more about the Swiftlane intercom.