COVID-19 security tips revisited

We recommend the following steps:

1. Consider a non-invasive, non-contact first step for visitors, employees, customers or vendors entering your buildings with an FDA-cleared system to screen for elevated skin temperature.
2. A next-generation account management system can enhance your ability to safely control many alarm functions remotely.
3. Ensure that your open/close and holiday schedules reflect your new operating hours or closed status of your business for all systems.
4. Update your contact list for your intrusion systems to reflect any new organizational changes and responsibilities.
5. Revisit your access control lock/unlock schedules along with updating access rights to sensitive areas within your organization to reflect your new operating protocols and restrictions.
6. Review your access privileges to ensure the right people have access to the right areas, at the right times.
7. Check the status of all panels and door contacts to ensure they are online and communicating with the host system. If possible, enable remote notifications for conditions such as communication failure, door held open, door forced, etc.
8. If your access control solution has a timed-out function where access is automatically revoked after a specific time of inactivity, modify or remove that restriction to accommodate individuals’ new working schedules.
9. If your intrusion or access control systems have a mobile app, make sure to enable that function in order to receive critical alerts and notifications while you are away from the business.
10. Ensure your hard drive or cloud storage on your video system has sufficient space to handle the potential increase in recording.
11. Review your current camera placements for adequate coverage both inside and outside, if your business is closed or unoccupied. Also, ensure that existing cameras are online and recording.
12. Check with your ISP to confirm adequate bandwidth to accommodate increased video streaming requirements.
13. Revisit your integration points with existing intrusion or access control points to help capture video of intrusion alarm or access control attempted breaches.
14. Augment your visitor management system with an expanded questionnaire to include COVID-19 specific questions related to travel and potential exposure.