With the capture of visitor information being one aspect of business administration often glossed over, the new Protection of Personal Information (POPI) Act, is set to change the way companies view the traditional visitor’s book. The new POPI law will enforce regulations on how organisations handle their visitor data, as well as the manner in which that information is protected. Local biometric security solution provider, Ideco, believes they can ease this burden, having recently unveiled their new eBook solution, Electronic Visitor Information Management (EVIM). 

Finger on the pulse

The reason for the company’s confidence is that these new regulations align business access control practices with the systems that Ideco already implement, as their products are built around the use  information is stored digitally, it can be referenced and catalogued with relative ease.

Marius Coetzee, MD at Ideco, stressed that South African businesses will now be forced to re-evaluate their access control procedures and ensure they are in keeping with modern day standards. “Businesses should seriously consider stopping the use of non-compliant, outdated visitor management and access control systems and investing in a viable, credible and trusted electronic solution.” Ideco believes that its EVIM product is one such solution, which, according to Coetzee, is designed to automate visitor registration and reinforce accuracy across all ID-based transactions. He added that this would drastically help combat escalating incidents of identity theft emanating from exposed visitor information in the traditional logbook.

The digital age

The EVIM solution itself is based on a mobile data terminal design with an integrated fingerprint scanner to capture visitor information. Ideco notes that EVIM carries the added benefit of being the only offering in the country which is fully compliant with the newly implemented POPI act. Some of the features of EVIM include the ability to scan barcodes from both one’s driver’s licence or ID. These details can then be cross-referenced against the national ID database for real- time checks, as well as specific user created lists for VIPs, scheduled appointments or those denied access for example.

As companies across the country will be prompted to re-align their current access control procedures and practices to the new regulations of the POPI act, the added layer of security and accuracy afforded by Ideco’s EVIM solution will become all the more significant. Ideco believes that for those looking to be ahead of the curve and close any loopholes left by traditional paper-based access control, there are few better digital alternatives than EVIM