One issue facing commercial or enterprise end user organizations is someone coming in with an expired badge that no one knows about. If the badge provides a visual, for example showing the word “void” or “expired” on it 24 hours after issuance, it would do a better job deterring those with ill intentions from re-entering the building.
One issue facing commercial or enterprise end user organizations is someone coming in with an expired badge that no one notices. If the badge provides a visual, for example showing the word “void” or “expired” 24 hours after issuance, it would do a better job deterring those with ill intentions from re-entering the building.
That’s exactly the solution developed by Farmington, Connecticut-based
Visitor Pass Solutions, which took part in ISC West this year.
Deborah Miller, National Sales Director at Visitor Pass Solutions, notes that her company is one of the two in the world that develops this kind of solution. While this is not a new technology per se, it’s still as practical and useful as ever, she said.
"The traditional way is just a regular label that doesn't expire and doesn't have any kind of identification pattern to show it’s expiring or invalid. Our visitor badges work with direct thermal printers and/or inject printers, and essentially when the badge prints out, it's activated so that it's going to turn into a different color overnight, so it cannot be reused the next day,” Miller said. “It's going to read ‘void’ on it, and people can get a visual that that particular person is not supposed to be in the facility because their badge is expired.”
The technology works by way of a chemical process. “It's a chemical reaction between the ink and the adhesive, and once those two touch, it bleeds through over a certain amount of time. At about eight to ten hours, you are going to start to see it turn pink, and at 24 hours it'll be at its full bleed-through and reads ‘void’ on it,” she said.
Different formats
The company’s solution comes in various formats, including the tab-expiring visitor pass where after the visitor’s information is written or printed onto the badge, it’s peeled from the liner, and the tab is folded behind the badge. The full-expiring visitor badge is the most visible expiring solution because the entire badge changes color overnight and can be seen from a distance. The dot-expiring visitor pass has a red expiring circle preprinted on the bottom right corner. Once a visitor signs in, a white front piece dot gets applied over the red circle to activate the tamperproof expiration process.
“The nice thing is we created them so it doesn’t matter what visitor management software you’re using. Our badges will work with a majority of printers, and we have lots of software partners that we work with, and make sure that the badges work properly with the printers. It's a very popular item,” Miller said.
According to her, there is a real user need for this type of solution, which has been deployed in various locations. “Schools, hospitals, corporations, government facilities … just about anywhere that is badging visitors. If a visitor comes in and a badge gets put on them, and they walk out the door with it, it's not a big deal because they can't get in the next day. The security guard doesn’t have to chase them down, and they don't have to worry about them sneaking in the next day. It's that added layer of security, and it also allows the security guard to be able to focus on other things besides people leaving with their badges,” she said.
According to Miller, the company sells their badges to different countries in the world, including Australia, U.K. and Germany, but the U.S. remains their biggest market.