Responsible for the development of the Park Royal business estate between central London and Heathrow, the offices of the Park Royal Partnership (PRP) needed a robust access control system.
Managers wanted to be able to restrict access to critical computer areas, produce reports on usage and change access privileges according to operational requirements. PRP assessed fob, swipecard and PIN solutions before finally opting for fingerprint recognition technology from British firm FDE.
Rena Kazinou, PRP’s customer relations manager, said one of the concerns about swipecards was the expense of staff losing and forgetting them.
“Plus, our landlords were also considering swipe cards for the main access point to the building which would probably mean a double card system – a bit messy,” she said. “We considered a biometric solution as it appeared to tick all the boxes – secure, easy to use and easy to administer.”
Although more expensive to set up than traditional ‘access control systems’, FDE said advanced technical capabilities and a sophisticated biometrics engine made its fingerprint solution more desirable. Each standalone unit is said to be capable of storing up to 950 individual fingerprints and, if incorporated with a networked solution, has a capacity dependent on the size of the external hard drive.
When a finger is placed on the reader, an algorithm using over 100 different test points should quickly match the print against those previously enrolled on the system.
“FDE’s biometric access control system is easy to use and management is very straightforward and allows us to monitor access activity,” Kazinou said. She added that PRP would ‘certainly consider’ FDE products if it changed its office location in the future.
Readers have been placed on the main office access door and outside the computer training and server rooms at the Victoria Road site.
FDE products, which are designed and manufactured in the UK, are used in a variety of applications including offices, hotels, and sport clubs.
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