Everyone is anxious to get back to work and in the excitement of reopening, security can be overlooked. Actually, security must be your first consideration for several important reasons.

Attention is lax; everyone is focused on restarting their job, renewing acquaintances and remembering where they left off months ago.
Security procedures may have been forgotten, we have all been out of our routine.
Vital security systems have been neglected from lack of use.
Threats will increase … the bad guys have been “out of work” too so they are looking for new opportunities. More importantly, the FBI Counter Terrorism unit announced on May 13, 2020 to Infragard Members through a Homeland Intelligence Article an overview of threats linking 5G communications infrastructure to the COVID-19 pandemic. If you are a communications company you have even more threats to consider.

Here are some security measures worth considering as you restart your operations.

Asset Identification

Inventory your current critical assets, including personnel. Make sure you know what you are protecting before making changes to your security systems.

Threat Assessment

Consider a renewed threat assessment in light of our “new normal”; threats change with the environment and our environment has unmistakably changed. Likewise, your vulnerabilities have changed; you may be short staffed, not only in security but in all aspects of your business. The absence of staff makes committing unwanted acts more likely.

Exterior Perimeter and Building Perimeters

You should have an unbroken line of barricades (walls and doors) around your property and your valuable assets. These form concentric circles of protection with each inner layer being more difficult to overcome than the adjacent outer layer. Your exterior perimeter and parking lot may be open to the public but that makes your building perimeter more important. Make sure there is something between you and the bad guy.

Test gates and gate operators to confirm function and that fence lines are still intact. If there are access controls on these openings test the locking and release mechanisms.

Confirm that doors which should be locked are locked and test the door to make sure it doesn’t just appear to be secure but that it really is closed tight and locked. This would also be a good time to check emergency exits. Doors that are not used for long periods of time can stick or jam, debris may have fallen in front of exterior emergency exits and doors can sag on their hinges. Open the door, make sure it can open fully and that all emergency egress features work, then close and relock the door.

Windows are often overlooked. If you have operable windows give them the same test as doors.

Access Control

It is possible that someone may have altered your access control database in response to the lockdown; confirm the settings for access groups and time periods are set to your normal conditions. Remember, the person who did the change may no longer be in that position or hasn’t yet reported to work.

However, this would be a good time to reconsider your access group and time period combinations, especially if you have internal access control openings. With “social isolation” in effect remember that you can easily restrain employees from going in areas where their presence is not required. Many access control systems are set up to permit all employees to go in all areas because it is convenient and easy to manage.

Isolating employees to the own sections has its share of problems in setting up and worker convenience. But this approach may be all that stands between getting back to full operation and having most of the staff out because they were infected by another staff member who wandered into their area without good cause.

There are a lot of manufacturers of heat sensing equipment advertising today, and for good reason. One of the “national identification” signals for CV 19 is a rise in body temperature. I am not recommending this approach nor am I suggesting it has no value, there is simply not enough information on the subject to make an informed decision.

However, if you believe that measuring a person’s temperature is a good control method for keeping infected people out of your facility there are substantial and convenient ways to do it. There are sensors available that can be integrated with your existing access control systems and prevent doors from unlocking for people with temperatures above a certain threshold. These are unattended monitors and respond only to temperature variations so there are risks of Type-II errors (locking people out based on a false reading).

Remote Investigations

Like access control, audio and video surveillance systems have settings that can be, and may have been, altered as a result of the lockdown. Check your settings and recording functions to confirm they currently meet expectations. If you have a digital recording system (and most systems today are digital), make a copy of as much of the captured video and audio as is available from the lockdown period. Store it in an archive and maintain that archive for at least a year. It will be useful should you discover a problem that requires investigation.

This would also be a good time to check the scene of each camera (where it is aimed).Make sure your system sees the things you are most interested in. Remember, the purpose of a surveillance system is 2-fold, first to allow your security staff to investigate an alarm or surveil an area without actually having to go to that area and second, to provide evidentiary data for future investigations.

Temperature sensing … there are cameras that can “see” heat. Many are being touted today and the right choice for monitoring staff and visitors. Again I am neither recommending nor criticizing this approach; there is simply not enough data.

However, if you believe this is the right approach for your company, know that you can add such cameras to your existing CCTV system now by either replacing an existing camera or installing one in a new location. In this approach though, evidentiary data probably has marginal value, the cameras should be monitored and the security staff should have a protocol on how to respond to a person with a higher than normal temperature. Most of these cameras work on a standard CCTV network (hard wired and IP) and can be displayed on a standard color monitor.

Response Team and Incident Reporting

In this “new normal” more has been added to the threats facing our organizations, disabling the staff with a disease. Consider obtaining personal protective equipment for security personnel and, as quickly as possible, establish company policy and compose new or amended protocols for the security staff on handling someone that you want to separate from the rest of your team.

Visitor Controls

As you might expect, this should get a great deal of attention. The temperature monitoring suggestions provided earlier under Access Control and Response Team is one approach, there are other ways of restricting access based on an established criteria but using them would make doing business very difficult.

It would seem better to assume every visitor entering your facility is infected and focus attention on reducing the threat of contamination by using distance and barriers to contain these visitors. Specifically, use access control “corridors” which prevent visitors from going where they do not belong or by requiring employee escorts for all visitors and providing specific guidance through protocols to employees.

“Plexiglas” between visitors and employees can be useful and, of course, add or increase the hand sanitizer stations throughout the facility.

Protocols and Regulatory Compliance

One of our fellow consultants in the IAPSC, Michael White of Hilt International Security, prepared a “Tool Kit” that addresses many of the same recommendations provided by others for cleaning and taking precautions for avoiding contaminations. The Tool Kit also provides suggestions for protocol considerations not covered elsewhere in this White Paper, these are listed below:

Work from Home Policy
Bio-hazardous Waste Policy
Signage
Air Quality Control Standards
Underground or Parking Facility Policy
Receiving Procedures
Elevator Procedures
After Hours Cleaning Procedures
Building Operations procedures
Business Continuity Plan
IT Security Policy and Procedures

Other Considerations

There are other elements to consider but the impact from CV19 or the lockdown would seem to have little impact in these areas. Here are some areas to remind you that they may apply to your organization.

Alarm Monitoring and Panic Alarms
Employee Identification
Communications
Lighting
Signage
Blast Proximity
Utilities and Emergency Power

You should also be aware of other recommendations on reopening, here are some links:

From the White House, Guidelines for Opening Up America: https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Guidelines-for-Opening-Up-America-Again.pdf?mod=article_inline

From ASIS International, ASIS Foundation Research: Resilience and Recovery After COVID-19: https://www.asisonline.org/get-involved/asis-foundation/covid-19-resiliency-research/

From ASIS International, Resetting the Business After the COVID-19 Pandemic: https://www.asisonline.org/security-management-magazine/latest-news/online-exclusives/2020/Resetting-the-Business-After-the-COVID-19-Pandemic/

Campus Safety Organization, Protecting the Community of Care: https://www.campussafetymagazine.com/download/protecting-the-community-of-care/?eid=443192790&bid=2633706

Best of luck in your reopening and please call me if I may be of service.

Michael Khairallah

Sr. Security Systems Consultant

Security Design Solutions

985-875-0119

Reopening Securely