Police in Marlton, New Jersey are looking for five suspects that broke into an Apple Store and made off with a few dozen Macbooks.

Click below to watch a news clip showing the brazen smash & grab that took just 31 seconds for the thieves to clean the store out of almost every display model.

Although the store had a Security Guard on duty, the crooks were able to smash the front glass doors and each took an ‘aisle’ in the store to grab every MacBook on display. Apparently, one of the crooks motioned to the Guard that he had a gun… forcing the Guard to back-off and not try to intervene at all.

As pointed out by the (incredibly annoying) reporter in the newsstory, the CCTV system in the store did not offer any deterrent value as the thieves simply covered their faces while they were in sight of the cameras.

Beyond the reminder that a CCTV system is not a deterrent, this smash & grab offers a few lessons:

1. You cannot make it physically impossible for someone to break in

If someone wants to try and break into your home or business, there is very little that you can do to make it physically impossible. If they want in, they’ll get in eventually. The trick is to put appropriate security measures in place that help make it easy for a potential burglar to make a decision not to bother with your place.

If you have a full-time security guard, extensive camera system or a big dog in your house, if a crook decides that he wants to try to get in anyways… he will. It’s the combination of the appropriate security measures that provide real security.

Your goal is to create enough perceived hassle for a crook that they make up their own mind that your store, or home, is not worth the effort.

2. Five-Minute Proofing is the most important security tactic

Five-Minute Proofing is the single most effective security tactic that you can implement in your home or business. Simply put, Five-Minute Proofing means that you ensure that, from the point at which the alarm is tripped, it would take a crook at least five minutes to get to what you are trying to protect.

In the case of this particular Apple Store, the store should have been equipped with glassbreak detectors near the front doors. More importantly, the glass panels themselves should have been laminated glass… or at least had security film on them, so that they wouldn’t smash so easily.

That way, when the crooks made their first attempt to smash the glass, the glassbreak detectors (if they were installed correctly) would hear the sound of the glass being attacked and trip the alarm. Alternatively, the camera system could have been set-up to trip an alarm due to someone standing at the front door for too long after-hours.

By designing the alarm to trip while the crooks are still outside, the Police could have been immediately called by the Security Guard to report what was happening and the alarm monitoring company would also be immediately able to assist. If the alarm monitoring company were monitoring the camera system, they could also relay the suspects exact descriptions, in real time, to the Police.

Beyond the front glass, there should be a second layer of physical security inside the store to help slow the crooks down. Expanding gates are often used for this purpose and are best installed several feet away from the front of the store. That way, if the crooks were able to eventually break through the glass to get in the store, they would then need to contend with getting around the expanding gates. Your security is in your redundancy.

Going a step further, each of the MacBooks could easily be locked down… not to make them impossible to steal, but ensuring that noone could simply grab a couple dozen of them in half a minute.

It’s not about making it physically impossible to get in… it’s about putting enough impediments into a potential crooks’ way that he is (or they are) unable to get to your valuables quickly.

If those three (the alarm, laminated glass and an expanding gate) Five Minute Proofing measures had been in place in this particular Apple Store, both the Security Guard and Alarm Monitoring company would have had a reasonable chance to call 911 and report a crime in progress.

The store would have had a damaged front door, but they would not have risked the safety of the security guard or had to worry about five crooks who learned how easy it is to break into their store and clean them out.

Click the video below to watch an excerpt from a recent ‘Preventing Burglary’ seminar where I explain Five Minute Proofing and give a few other examples.

Click below to watch a short clip from the CTV News last night regarding an initiative by the Vancouver Public Space Network to count the number of surveillance cameras in Downtown Vancouver. According to the VPSN website, the purpose of the count is to “inform the public, and to discuss surveillance issues with city hall and the police. We will also use the maps to create an art installation sometime in the fall..”

I’m quite confident that whatever number that they end up with, it will still be much lower than the actual number.

The image quality of most new surveillance cameras is increasing almost as fast as equipment costs are coming down. As a result, the number of cameras in both public and private spaces will only increase. With or without the 2010 Olympics, there will be many more cameras in Vancouver by this time next year. The vast majority of them will be installed on private property, but will be viewing (at least partially) public spaces. I don’t see any reason why this trend will not continue.

the ‘privacy’ issue

In terms of the privacy concerns, I believe that the law is already pretty clear. You cannot film someone where they have a reasonable expectation of privacy. Therefore, no filming in washrooms, changing rooms, staffrooms or other similar places. Anyone who gets caught violating people’s privacy in that way can face some serious consequences. “Privacy” in a public space… like a sidewalk or storefront is a very different matter and hasn’t existed in a very long time.

The real question is how is all of this technology is being used… and, most importantly, is it offering any real value in preventing crime.

I’ve posted on this blog before about why the vast majority of CCTV installations do not provide a deterrent to crime. The reality is that most CCTV systems simply provide a really frustrating video recording of your stuff being stolen… which you’ll watch hours after the crime occurred.

In the CTV clip below, I demonstrate how using video analytics can help turn a ‘regular’ CCTV system into a much more effective crime prevention tool by analyzing suspicious behaviour. By doing so, the CCTV system stops being a passive recorder of activity and, instead, becomes a pro-active tool that alerts responders to criminal activity just as it’s starting… not simply providing a record of it hours after it’s over.

We use this technology for many of our residential and commercial clients. In the example shown in the CTV clip, the system is programmed to detect someone standing right up against our showroom windows. Anytime this happens, the system creates an alarm (in the same manner that a motion detector or glassbreak sensor would trip an alarm on the inside) and a signal is sent to our 24/7 Operations Centre where our team can immediately review the live video and determine if a response is required.

We have this technology set up on clients property to create alarms whenever someone climbs over a fence, in retail stores when someone is standing for too long in front of the door after-hours as well as in office towers to detect unusual activity in hallways when the building is supposed to be empty.

Without question, the technology allows us to offer a much higher level of security for our clients and eliminates the need for a human being to sit and watch hours of live video footage in the hopes of watching a crime transpire.

Of course, like most other technology, it’s all about the human response.

Unless someone is set-up to provide immediate response to what has been detected, it’s of little value. That’s where our guaranteed five minute response comes in. Video analytics can be a very important part of your overall security system… often, using analytics allows us to respond to an alarm while a crook is still thinking of breaking in rather than after he has already successfully gained access.

On Wednesday morning, a Westside business learned the hard way why Police response does not work.

At about 3:45am, crooks smashed a pane of glass and forced open a set of expandable bars to steal some movies, video games and gaming consoles.

The alarm did not trip until after the bars had been forced open and the burglar(s) walked in front of a motion detector inside the store. When the alarm company received the signal, they followed typical procedures by calling the store and then the emergency contacts.

Because they were unable to get an answer from any of the emergency contacts, they were unable to dispatch the Police to request a response due to the Vancouver City By-Law which does not allow for alarm companies to request Police response until after an emergency contact has been reached.

No contact was reached… so no Police response could be requested.

As a result, the store remained wide open… accessible to the world until someone noticed the broken glass and called Police several hours later.

The store was very lucky… if the crooks who had broken in had been smart, or patient, enough to watch for any response to their initial burglary, they could have easily cleaned out the entire store, displays and all. They certainly would have had enough time to do it.

Unfortunately, incidents like this happen all of the time.

There are several things that could have been done to minimize the loss incurred during this burglary:

1. Get private response

Police response to burglar alarms simply does not work. I’ve written extensively about this issue (click here, here or here for a few examples).

By assuming that all alarms are false until proven otherwise completely eliminates any real value that an alarm can offer. Having a private and immediate response service in place would have at least ensured that someone was going to be responsible for attending to the alarm and make sure that the store would not be left wide open for hours;

2. Detect the ‘break’ not the ‘enter’

The alarm should have been configured to trip the second that the glass was broken. Instead, because the alarm system relied on an interior motion detector as the first detection point, the alarm did not trip until after the glass was broken and the bars had been disabled.

A properly installed glassbreak detector would have ensured that an alarm signal was sent while the crooks were still standing outside… which may have been enough to encourage them to change their plans. All of the effort required to break into a premises occurs while the crook is still standing OUTSIDE… the alarm must be configured to detect that. Once they are inside, they are moving quickly and it is very unlikely that response will be fast enough to catch them in the act. Detect the ‘break’ not the ‘enter’.

Burglaries like this do not need to happen.

Your security is in your redundancy. Installing bars is not good enough. Neither is an alarm. In fact, just about anything by itself isn’t going to be very effective… your security comes from building multiple levels of detection & security so that your different security measures work together to create actual security. The individual components on their own are almost never good enough. It doesn’t need to be expensive… but it does need to be well thought out. In this case, a bit of extra money spent on private response as well as one glassbreak detector would have saved a significant loss from occurring.

We had another full showroom last night for our ‘Preventing Burglary’ seminar. We’ve received a lot of great feedback from people about the seminar…. but up until today, we’ve never had a video testimonial from someone who attended.

Ian Watt is a Vancouver Realtor focused on the Downtown Condo market who has become famous for his daily video blog posts that he films while driving around Vancouver. Ian attended last week’s seminar and we’re glad that he had good things to say about us (because as anyone who has watched any of Ian’s videos will attest, we’re pretty sure that he’d happily film a video saying he hated it if he felt that way).

Provident Security Seminar Keeping Vancouver Townhouse Owners Safe from Ian Watt Vancouver Condo on Vimeo.

Our next home security seminar will be held on Tuesday, January 13th in our Kerrisdale Showroom … please come by around 6:45pm for some wine and cheese… the presentation will begin at 7:00pm.

Click here to read some comments from past attendees.

Every seminar that we have held over the past few months has sold out early… although it’s free to attend, we do have limited space.

If you’d like to attend, please click here to RSVP.

The Seattle Police Department recently announced that, effective January 1st, they will become one of the largest major police departments to mandate that alarm companies must place two verification calls to customers before contacting police.

From the SPD release…

Alarm companies are also required to use enhanced call verification (ECV) for all burglary alarms.  ECV is a monitoring procedure requiring that the alarm company, prior to making an alarm dispatch request, make a minimum of two phone calls.  This is done by calling the location of the alarm first and then a secondary number determined by the subscriber, often a cell phone number.  ECV is only required for burglary alarms, not hold-up or panic alarms. Beginning January 1, 2009, the Seattle Police Department will not respond to requests from alarm companies to dispatch officers to a monitored burglary alarm when the alarm company has not utilized ECV.

Given that just about every alarm is false, this policy makes a lot of sense for the police… unfortunately, it doesn’t offer anything to alarm owners other than serving to make their monitored alarm systems even less effective.

The branding of the two-call verification as ‘Enhanced’ allows alarm companies to try and hoodwink customers into believing that the practice is somehow an improvement, or at least in their favour. The reality is, ECV all but ensures that in the event of an actual burglary, noone will be able to respond in a meaningful amount of time to have any impact.

Using ECV, or doing anything between the time an alarm signal is received and the time someone is dispatched to attend, is a waste. While ECV will further reduce the number of false dispatches to the SPD (which is great for Seattle taxpayers) it still allows the alarm industry to continue the misleading practice of promoting ECV as something that is good for them.

The SPD should adopt a non-response policy.

Rather than making a policy change which helps (inadvertently) facilitate deceptive sales practices, why not just come out and say that because 98% of alarms are false, the police will no longer respond unless an alarm has been verified to be real?

Alarm companies would be forced to be much more honest with their clients about what will happen when the alarm trips. More importantly, the ability to get away with selling an incomplete service will dry up.

There is a pretty major lobby from the security industry to fight a move like that… but it’s the right thing to do.

Incidentally, the Vancouver Police policy actually goes a little further than Seattle in that the Vancouver Security Alarm System Bylaw No.7111 (s.27) says that “Before notifying the Police Department of an alarm incident… an alarm company MUST contact by telephone or other electronic means, in order to establish whether the incident is a false alarm”. The word ‘must’ was recently added to replace the word ‘attempt’.

The subtle difference is that in Seattle, the alarm company only has to attempt to reach a client at two different numbers, whereas in Vancouver the alarm company must reach them.

As the false alarm problem continues to plague police departments and police operating budgets get tighter, the eventual move is to finally adopt a policy that requires verification before the police can be called. That’s not good for the status quo in the alarm industry, but it will be good for pretty much everyone else… most importantly the consumer.

At least then the consumer can make an informed choice about what type of security they want for their home or business and not be under any false impression that the Police will be coming in the event an alarm sounds.

In today’s Courier, a letter from Dave Jones was published in response to last week’s article about the Downtown Ambassador program funding in which I was quoted.

In his letter, Jones points out that he is a former Vancouver Police Inspector. A more relevant part of his resume that he should have mentioned was his current position with the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Area (DVBIA) as a Security Consultant whose primary role is the administration & management of the Downtown Ambassadors Program.

In fact, he is also the chief salesman for the Ambassador program and has played the leading role in expanding it to other BIA’s (who then pay a fee to the DVBIA) as well as lobbying the City to increase funding for it.

He suggests that I have a ‘dilemma’ to resolve in that Provident stands to benefit financially from the program and that he assumes that I “argued for–as a board member, I believe–on behalf of the Kerrisdale Business Improvement Association (KBIA).”

In fact, as Dave knows, I have been completely consistent in my views and criticisms of this program funding since the very beginning. At a meeting with every BIA at the Roundhouse Community Centre on June 2nd I made my argument very clear. With representatives of every BIA in the City, including Dave Jones, as well as a couple City employees, I stated explicitly that I believe that the money would be better spent on increased community policing hours.

When Councilors Suzanne Anton and Kim Capri came to my office months before, I made the same comments to them.

At KBA Board meetings, I have also been vocal, and completely consistent, on my views about the fact that this money could be better spent. Not that it’s a waste of money, just that it could be better spent.

As a business owner who both works and lives in Kerrisdale, coupled with my roles on the Kerrisdale Business Association and as the community security provider, I believe that I have a very clear duty to act in a way that benefits the neighbourhood… not just my own financial interests. It would surely have been a conflict of interest for me to not make my thoughts on the program very clear.

My point is simply that the money that the city is spending on security for public spaces would be better spent on increased, and focused, community policing hours. I did not say that the KBA didn’t need, deserve or intend to make the very best use of the money available. The money will be put to the best possible use given the circumstances… The simple fact is that cleaning up street disorder is most effectively achieved by a Police Officer who has far fewer restrictions than a security guard.

However, to Dave’s suggestion that I ask for the KBA allocated funds be diverted to Policing… first off, it’s not his suggestion, it was mine. To date, everyone involved has told me that that is not possible.

Private security can offer exceptional value and can be paid for by BIA’s, but public funds should support public policing.

If Kerrisdale can opt to have the Ambassador funds redirected into increased community policing hours in the neighbourhood… I’ll be very happy to support that. That was the point of my post in the first place.

… although, to give Dave some credit, his line “When you see someone on such a high horse you have to wonder about the oxygen intake.”… that was awesome.

As a part of the City of Vancouver’s Civil City Initiative, more than $800,000 has been (controversially) allocated for expansion of the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Area (DVBIA) Downtown Ambassador program. Initially, the idea was to offer an incentive for other city BIA’s (such as Gastown, Robson Street, Chinatown, Davie Village, etc.) to use the Downtown Ambassadors and for those BIA’s to be eligible to receive city funding to ‘top up’ any BIA money spent on the program.

The initial version of the policy drafted by City Council only allowed for BIA’s to be eligible for funding if they used the Downtown Ambassadors (rather than any existing, or alternate, security provider). Given that the DVBIA also charges an annual ‘licensing’ fee to any other BIA as well as management fees, the program effectively put a non-profit business association into the security business.

There are so many conflicts of interest, operational and ethical problems with that particular set-up, it’s hard to know where to start.

A subsequent revision of the program expanded the scope so that any business association in the city could apply for money for either an ‘Ambassador’ program or ‘Ambassador-like’ program expansion. There was a fairly thorough vetting process designed to ensure that these other programs met many specific criteria (such as human rights training) before they could be ‘approved’ for funding. Kerrisdale’s existing security program falls into the category of ‘Ambassador-like’.

As a result, The Kerrisdale Business Association, like many other BIA’s in the city, applied to receive money to expand the existing Kerrisdale security program to add approximately three additional day shifts per week. On September 16th Kerrisdale was approved.

Provident has been providing security for the Kerrisdale Business Association (KBA) since 1997… we were originally hired to address a major burglary problem along West 41st Avenue. Working closely with the merchants and KBA, we dramatically reduced the number of burglaries almost immediately. Since that time, the scope of the security program in Kerrisdale has expanded to include daytime patrols as well to address issues like shoplifting, aggressive panhandling and graffiti. There is no question that the security program works well and has provided tremendous value.

KBA members pay 100% of the cost of the security program, and have since 1997.

To the best of my knowledge, only Chinatown and Gastown have had community security programs in place longer. Since then, most BIA’s in the city have since initiated similar patrol programs… many of which sent delegates to Kerrisdale to learn about the specific ways that we’ve been able to achieve such significant results… one of which was the DVBIA.

Following the lead of many other downtown business associations, the DVBIA opted to create their own branded security program … the Downtown Ambassadors.

The increased security will be good for the KBA and it provides additional value for KBA members as well as the Kerrisdale community.

Without question, if any BIA in the city deserves to be eligible for city funding for security, it’s Kerrisdale. Kerrisdale merchants have spent well over $1 million dollars on security services over the past decade and should be first in line for any financial support from the city. Obviously, Provident also stands to benefit financially from this program.

This is not how taxpayer’s money should be spent…

The City is in a unique position in that it can do what no BIA, or other private business in Vancouver, can do… the City can hire Police Officers. They should.

Rather than funding private security guards, the City should spend money dedicating VPD Constables to specific neighbourhoods.

There is no question that you can hire more security guards than police officers for the same amount of money… but it is a question of impact.

In the case of Kerrisdale, there is one full-time VPD Constable shared between Kerrisdale, Oakridge and Marpole… Cst. Ray Gardner.

The impact this one Community Policing Constable, despite being split between the three areas, has had in our neighbourhood is profound. Beyond the consistent and visible Police presence on the street, it enhances our security program. It gives our team an individual person to liaise with and serves to make the investment that the KBA has made in security have much greater impact. Its great for us, our clients, the neighbourhood and the Police themselves.

We are on patrol in the neighbourhood 24 hours a day… anytime we encounter an urgent situation that requires immediate Police response, we call 911. For the vast majority of other issues where Police attendance would be very helpful, we call the Community Policing Centre, or Cst. Gardner, directly.

Because he has the mandate, interest, and time to focus on our neighbourhood, we receive follow-up and assistance that other patrol Constables are simply too busy to be able to provide.

Whether it is responding to calls from merchants regarding shoplifters, following up with youth caught vandalizing property or tagging, educating merchants or being able to spend enough time to get to the bottom of a ladder theft… community policing really works. Rather than having to wait for a situation to escalate to the point where Police response is the only option, we can work with Cst. Gardner to intervene much earlier in the process … allowing both Provident and the VPD to be much more proactive.

If the city wants to get maximum value for the dollars that they are spending to make Vancouver a safer and more ‘civil’ city, it should focus on spending the money in a way that provides unique and maximum value.

There is no question in my mind that having the KOM Community Policing Centre, and specifically Cst, Ray Gardner, has allowed Provident to be much more effective for the KBA.

If there is $800,000.00 to spend, assigning all of it to additional Constables who would be dedicated to provide service to specific neighbourhoods would have a much more profound impact. It would do a lot of things that BIA’s might be surprised by… like making the money that they are already spending on private security much more effective.

The city of Vancouver electrical code requires that every home has 120 volt smoke detectors installed before an Occupancy Permit will be issued. As a result, electricians will always install these ‘regular’ detectors in order to meet the code. Often, homeowners assume that those smoke detectors are being monitored by their alarm system… they rarely are.

Unfortunately, the city code does not yet recognize the superiority of having monitored, low voltage smoke detectors installed in your home.

What’s the difference between a ‘regular’ smoke detector and a monitored, low-voltage version?

Some of the advantages of a monitored, low-voltage smoke detector include:

• They are monitored through the alarm system… in the event of a fire (or the presence of smoke), we’ll know about it within seconds (even faster if you have BLINK);
• Because they are monitored through the alarm, a signal is sent to us to indicate that a detector has lost power or is using a back-up battery;
• the ability to pinpoint exactly which detector is in alarm;

By contrast, when the regular 120 volt detectors trip, they just make a noise… and if the power goes out, they will only last as long as the battery that you’ve installed in it (assuming it works).

This is why you often see homes with two smoke detectors side-by-side (like the photo below)… one is to meet the city electrical code… and one that is connected to the alarm system (either hardwired or wireless).

120Volt Smoke Detectors can be monitored… but are not the best way to go

While devices exist that allow us to connect your alarm to the 120 volt smoke detectors, we find that this practice invariably causes confusion later on… not the least of which is the fact that when any smoke detector in the house trips, all we know is that a fire alarm has tripped, not the exact location, or which specific detector, tripped. This is because 120 Volt detectors are ‘daisy-chained’ when wired… meaning that each detector is connected to a single cable. With low voltage detectors, each device is wired directly to the panel (or sends a wireless signal to the panel) without any ‘sharing’.

Daisy chain wiring creates a lot of frustration and wasted time for clients, the Fire Department and our Technicians when we are trying to troubleshoot why an alarm occurred … because all we know is that there was an alarm, but not the specific location from where it originated.

By contrast, with monitored low voltage detectors, we know immediately that an alarm is coming from the master bedroom smoke detector, or the basement electrical room or the garage, or wherever… giving the Fire Department much better information while they are en-route to your home.

False Alarm Issues

Because one of the most common reasons for smoke detectors tripping is burning something in the kitchen, clients invariably end up disconnecting the 120 volt smoke detector closest to the kitchen.

For this reason, we recommend that those ‘regular’ smoke detectors NOT be connected to the alarm. Instead, we install low voltage smoke detectors, designed to be remotely monitored, outside of each bedroom and in the basement… never anywhere near the kitchen.

Another advantage of low-voltage smoke detectors over the 120 volt ones is aesthetics. In many new residential projects, we are installing a flush-mount detector. The photo below shows one installed in our Kerrisdale showroom. While it is several times as expensive as a regular detector, it is the only flush mounted design that I have seen that really works.

The photo isn’t great, but it shows the smoke detector in the top right corner along with a small pot light and a ceiling mounted motion detector. Please feel free to stop by our showroom at 2309 West 41st Avenue if you would like to see how it looks installed.

What should you do?

1. Determine if your existing smoke detectors are monitored or not (call your alarm company and ask);

2. If your smoke detectors are more than 3 years old, consider having them replaced… if they are more than 5 years old, definitely have them replaced;

3. If you only have 120 Volt smoke detectors installed, consider having monitored low voltage smoke detectors added to your system (they can be either hardwired or wireless).

Friday’s fire at a UBC condo serves as yet another example of why remote management for access control systems is so important.

For those who didn’t catch the story… A fire started (sounds like from a BBQ) on a 3rd floor patio at the building… neighbours called the Fire Department reporting seeing smoke billowing (no smoke detectors in the suite??) … when the Fire Department arrived, they could not get into the building because the building had an access control system that required a keyfob to both unlock the front door as well as control the elevator.

As CTV reported, precious minutes were wasted when Fire Fighters arrived on scene because they were unable to gain entry to the building because of its access control system. (Click here to view CTV’s photo gallery of the fire)

Sadly, like most buildings in Vancouver that have access control systems (where you use a card or key-fob to unlock your door), the systems are designed with more marketing in mind than actual ‘security’. A security system should not put you at greater risk in the event that Police, Fire or Paramedics are urgently needed.

Here is the text from an article I wrote last year for Canadian Property Management Magazine that outlines the solution to this completely avoidable problem…

In February 2006 the Vancouver Police received a call from a distraught woman who said she was being beaten by her husband and needed help. When Police arrived at the downtown highrise where the call originated, they found the front doors locked and had to use the building’s intercom to dial the suite. The phone was answered by a male who simply said “She’s fine” and hung up.

When the Police tried to get into the building by dialing other residents on the intercom, they learned that although any resident could buzz them into the front lobby, the security system was designed so that only a resident on the 18th floor could allow the elevator to open on the that floor. For security reasons, none of the suite numbers were displayed on the intercom. As a result, the Police were forced to choose between randomly selecting between hundreds of residents to find one who actually lived on the same floor as where the 911 call originated, or break into the stairwell and climb 18 stories.

As pointed out in the Vancouver Province column that discussed the incident, this is not an uncommon occurrence for the Police. In fact, it has become a big enough issue that the VPD created a program called ‘Project Access’.

‘Project Access’ calls for construction companies and strata councils to install a lockbox, which would be accessible by the VPD Sergeant on duty. Inside the tube would be a full access key fob or card.

The fact that the Police cannot quickly access a building in an emergency is clearly a huge problem… and is only going to get worse. However, I strongly recommend AGAINST any building using any type of lockbox. The Fire Department has used lockboxes for years, and theft from these boxes has always been a major concern. Irrespective of construction, and even if the box itself is monitored as a part of the alarm system, an external lockbox presents an unnecessary risk to condo owners.

If the lockbox gets broken into, a thief can gain full access to the building.

The best solution is remote management.

Remote management of building access control systems solve two very serious risks: 1) as described above, the difficulty for emergency responders to gain access to the building, and 2) it eliminates the risks associated with having an access control system managed through a PC located on-site and operated by a resident manager.

The way this service works is that rather than an access control system’s database being held on a PC located at the client site (which in itself is a huge security risk) the database is moved to a secured server located in a high-security, central monitoring station.

Using either dial-up or broadband connections, security firms (that have the proper infrastructure) are able to remotely manage the database, including adding, modifying or deleting users as well as make regular database back-ups.

With a fully managed system, off-site security can talk to the Police, verify their identity, view them live on camera as well as remotely unlock the front door and control the elevator for them.

Another common failure of most building access control systems is the lack of professional management of the system. In most cases, the database that controls the system is ‘managed’ by a resident manager, concierge or other person for whom database management is not a full-time job. The result is often that new users get added into the system, but regular audits are not performed and many keyfobs and cards for former residents/tenants are left in the system. Further, because the system is being maintained on a single PC, the access control software is at significant risk of data loss due to hard drive failure, improper back-up procedures as well as the risk of the physical theft of the PC itself.

The fewer key fobs/cards in circulation, the better. Even more important, each and every keyfob must be assigned to a single person to maximize accountability. Remote access control system management maximizes the effectiveness of any building’s system and ensures that the fewest possible ‘holes’ in security exist.

Rather than waiting until a serious incident occurs in your building, answer the following questions:

1. Where is the database for your access control system physically located? Is it secure? Is it backed-up? How often?
2. Is entry to the parking garage tracked in the same way that entry through a door is? (ie. Do you know exactly who opened the garage door and when? Or does everyone have a generic ‘clicker’ that is not individually assigned?)
3. Does your building still use lockboxes for the Fire Department, or anyone else?
4. Is the building’s telephone room secured with its own separate alarm system?
5. When was the last time you had a security professional (that knew what they were talking about) provide a thorough audit of your building?