Why a Visitor Must Sign In When Visiting a Work Site

Having visitors sign in is not the only thing you’ll need to do to ensure their safety, but it should always be the first thing. When sign in policy is properly enforced, your security personnel will always know who is on site, and where they should be.

Depending on the type of site, sign in may be conducted only on the entry to the site, but in sites where it’s required to track movement of personnel more accurately, you may need to have visitors sign in and sign out at each section they visit.

If that sounds like it will be time consuming and complicated, it doesn’t necessarily have to be. You can use card based or biometric systems to automate the process.

It should be noted, however, that use of biometric security requires collection of personally identifying data, and in this case you will have a greater responsibility to protect that data, and/or dispose of it appropriately when it is no longer required.

This entire process achieves the objective, and in the case of an emergency, you will know where your visitors should be, which provides a starting point for finding them and making sure they are evacuated.

Use of this policy also makes sure that visitors stay on the predicted paths they’re expected to take, and can even help make sure they stay on schedule.

Visitors are usually a good thing to have but you can’t afford to just simply trust them to have honest intentions. Business owners may be surprised to learn that authorised visitors can be one of the biggest threats they will face.

Visitors may have access to intellectual property, observational intelligence collection, and the opportunity to perform social engineering techniques on your employees.

Visitors can also unintentionally carry out actions that could compromise the safety and security of the site. These reasons make it essential to know who is visiting the site and where they are at all times. Most importantly, you need to know that they are where they are supposed to be.

Ideally all visitors should be accompanied. Some visitors, such as government inspectors, may need to spend prolonged time on site and may need to cover a large area. You will need to decide the level of trust you’re willing to grant to each type of visitor, and what you are comfortable with. As stated, however, it is always ideal for visitors to be accompanied.

The problem is that it’s never really possible to know in advance that a visitor will definitely pose a threat. Therefore the best policy is to assume that all visitors are potentially threats. Sometimes the threat comes from the person you would be least likely to suspect. Don’t rely solely on your intuition.

We are serious about security. From us, you can obtain all the hardware, software, and training you need for more effectively managing site access. Find out more by contacting LinkSafe on 1300 558 102, or use our contact form to leave a message.