To safeguard its huge amount of currency manufactured and the secret of its manufacturing know-how, the Korean national currency plant implemented an integrated video and access control solution that includes fingerprint and iris biometric readers.
To safeguard its huge amount of currency manufactured and the secret of its manufacturing know-how, the Korean national currency plant implemented an integrated video and access control solution that includes fingerprint and iris biometric readers.
Currency manufacturers face two major security concerns: protecting the huge amount of money in storage before their transfer to central banks, and keeping secret their manufacturing know-how. These security issues were certainly highest priority for the Korea Minting and Security Printing Corporation (KOMSCO), the South Korean currency manufacturer which prints mainly banknotes, coins and other government documents for its own market as well as for other European countries.
With the risks of robbery, violence and extortion of key employees, as well as the evolving threat of counterfeiting, physical security was identified as critical and KOMSCO sought a solution that would enhance the security and safety of its premises and employees as well as ensure manufacturing confidentiality.
The access control requirements of currency plants are considerable. There are many different types of control points. In addition to standard door controls, the system must also control access to more specialised areas, such as highly secured rooms containing currency moulds or trade secrets of banknotes. These requirements made it essential to have an advanced access control system – including fingerprint and iris biometric readers – that is integrated with a video system as part of the tender issued.
Several international security companies competed for this project, but after evaluating various enterprise solutions, KOMSCO decided to implement solutions from DDS. The combination of DDS' TPL controllers with Keico biometric readers, which provide control over "who goes where" and restrict access to unauthorised personnel, was selected by KOMSCO as the most suitable.
DDS' Amadeus 5 software, which provides biometric integration as a standard feature, allows security personnel to easily define template management (enrolment and download) and reader configuration. The software also features an alarm pop-up if an authorised user places another finger for reading other than the one defined during the enrolment.
In addition to substantially increasing the currency plant's level of security, the biometric access control solution means that KOMSCO employees can now never have to worry about keeping track of a card or key.
The Amadeus 5 software was also integrated with a video surveillanc system from Pelco, enabling KOMSCO to benefit from access control and video with only one piece of monitoring software, thus eliminating the need for traditional hardware such as video matrix switches, multiplexers and quads.
On the log screen, any event with supporting video footage is displayed with a camera icon. Clicking on the icon brings up the event's corresponding footage in a separate window. Every recorded video is independently saved in Amadeus 5 and can be viewed even in case of DVR failure.