Blue Valley Golf & Country Estate is a business and residential development situated between Midrand and Centurion. It features a Gary Player signature golf course and 1400 residential stands, 800 of which have been sold since the launch in July 1999, with 500 houses already completed.

Unauthorised entry into such estates is a known problem and causes a security threat to residents, visitors and employees alike. When construction is still taking place, that threat is potentially multiplied when taking into consideration that workers may be contracted to the appointed companies and then there are constant deliveries of material as well. With the combined activities of residents, golfers and construction workers, some form of access control was a must for the estate.

Electric fencing, surveillance cameras and guards patrolling 24x7 have long been used in an attempt to prevent crime. Visitors’ books, cards, tokens, PINs and passwords are also used as a way of controlling access to premises, but can result in a false sense of security as the validity of these methods is easy to bypass – incorrect names can be entered in visitors’ books, access cards can be lost, PINs can be forgotten or shared.

As the demand for a more secure lifestyle environment grows, knowing the identity of those entering a property provides increased peace of mind for residents. The surest way of obtaining this is through biometric technology.

MobiWorx was commissioned by Blue Valley to install EVIM (electronic visitor identity management) technology for this purpose and in May 2008, the traditional visitors’ books were replaced with the electronic access control system.

“Instead of writing down their details – which could be false – visitors enter their information into the EVIM system’s terminal,” explains Fritz Pauley, acting estate/security manager at Blue Valley. “Currently the system is used as a standalone solution for visitors, such as contractors, deliveries and golfers that have not pre-registered with their hosts.”

EVIM uses Sagem’s GPRS-enabled portable MorphoTouch 2G terminal that features an alpha-numeric keypad, LCD display, fingerprint scanner and thermal printer. All functionality on the terminal is delivered via GPRS from the software platform on the EVIM server, allowing remote configuration according to data-capture requirements on site.

Visitors’ ID number, car registration and contact details are entered on the terminal and the visitor ‘signs’ with a fingerprint. Within seconds, the details are checked against a national database and the identity confirmed. The terminal then prints a gate pass with the visitor’s name and the site conditions. The whole identification and registration process takes less than a minute from start to finish.

“The process for pre-registration of visitors works with the EVIM Connect software which is included with the EVIM Plus and EVIM e-Plus packages,” says Tebogo Talane of MobiWorx. “Residents notify the security manager, via e-mail, of their expected visitors, the e-mail will contain all the visitors’ details which the security manager will enter on the system. When the visitor arrives at the gate, the host will then be notified via e-mail or SMS that his visitor has arrived at the gate. Residents may decline access to individuals they do not wish to have on site.

EVIM software also features a desktop application for pre-booking visitors and a fast-track process for frequent visitors. Up to 10 fields of information can be recorded.

EVIM data is totally secured. Time-based visitor records are stored on EVIM’s central server for a minimum of three years and are only available to authorised members of the company whose visitor data is stored.

Unlike traditional paper-based visitor registers, the only information available to the guard is your name and vehicle registration, so the threat of visitor identity theft has been removed. The terminal does not hold any data itself – everything is stored securely on the EVIM server.

“The estate had an incident last year in which would-be criminals entered the premises after providing false information in the visitors’ book and held up one of the residents on our estate,” says Pauley. “By capturing, and then verifying the data of all visitors, through the EVIM system before entering the estate, the system serves as a deterrent for people who have ulterior motives as criminals are wary to have their fingerprints captured. However, if such an incident took place now, we would have a solid recourse method to track the responsible individuals.

“In addition, when one considers the losses that could be incurred by unauthorised people entering a residential estate, the return on investment in an accurate biometric solution is immeasurable and I would recommend this type of access control solution to all residential estates in their fight against crime.”