Access Control System for the Coast 

The Coast Guard of the United States is a maritime, military, and multi-mission service within the Department of Homeland Security and one of the nation's five armed entities. The central mission of the Coast Guard is to protect the security interests, public, the environment and U.S. economic in any possible province, including America's coasts, ports and inland waterways as well as international waters. As a result, the Coast Guard headquarters get placed on the vanguard of the nation’s security.

The Coast Guard depends upon the private sector for providing many of the goods and services it needs to operate its facilities just like all federal departments and agencies. Scores of commercial workers enter the Washington, D.C., headquarters on a daily basis to perform tasks ranging from construction and project management to maintenance and package delivery. Although important to operations, these employees present a potential risk to the security of the property.

Do their corporations have business on the property? Are they who they claim to be? Adding on, do they have any prohibiting incidents in their history, such as warrants or felonies that would prohibit them from receiving authorization for unaccompanied access to the headquarters?

This threat has grave repercussions for facility access management measures. The managers of security operations must verify all individuals for an authorization to enter the premises. However inquiring, stopping, and examining every vendor or contractor employee on a daily basis hinders the efficiencies of the many civilian workers who need access to the facility as well as the Coast Guard personnel. In order to resolve this matter, headquarters has instituted a number of new entry protocols for its vendors, contractors and service providers that increase the level of security without affecting its ability to efficiently execute daily chores.

Incoherent Examination is a Risk

The Coast Guard’s knowledge that vendor screening was inconsistent and represented a potential security threat led them to modernize entry control and protocols. A number of vendors would present background checks from online sources that only did local examinations or provided national background check data that were inaccurate. For instance, more than a few times, the employees failed the sex offender test. It was revealed that the worker had been erroneously recognized each time an employee challenged those results. Only at that point headquarters started wondering about the accuracy of these background checks. It was clearly obvious that if these services were designating innocent people as criminals, they were almost certainly failing to identify real evil-doers.

In order to deal with these security risks, the headquarters Support Command Security and Safety Division examined a number of applications and security services for background screening and vendor access.

The RAPIDGate program was quickly brought up to the attention of Coast Guard administrators by the Eid Passport Inc. The system had been in operation in several facilities for the past four years and met the full security needs the Coast Guard was looking for.

Due to the fact that system was a total access management solution, headquarters officials wanted to see it in operation and converse with the individuals who used it on a daily basis. They soon recognized that this specific system was the needed at headquarters to solve the contractor access management problems. A request for proposal was made and presented for offers. Quite a few companies replied to the offer, but only RAPIDGate was equipped to handle all the necessary requirements. One of the other benefits the system presented was full liability for all assistance services and equipment maintenance at the headquarters of the Coast Guard.

Incorporated Surveillance, Licensing and Regulation

The ability to incorporate solutions and services covering registration, background checkups, credential manufacturing, credential distribution and access management were amongst the many factors taken into consideration. Every solution offers an additional level of security that gives the Coast Guard a higher assurance in the level of risk and worker quality without heavily taxing the Security and Safety Division employees, as had been the setback with previous security solutions.

Enrollment of the vendor companies that regularly conduct business at CGHQ is the first step in the process. A toll-free number for assistance is utilized by RAPIDGate to expedite the enrollment process. Once the current security badge expires the existing vendors and contractors who had valid unclassified Coast Guard security badges from previous checks were required to enroll in the program. The contractors who decided not to enroll in the new program were not issued a badge and must be escorted, no exemptions were allowed.

After a company has been approved as an authorized contractor, the second step is to send its employees to register with the program using the registration centers of RAPIDGate. In less than 15 minutes the registration process, which has an English or Spanish option, collects the applicant's personal information, a photo and an electronic fingerprints. As soon as all the required data is given, the information is sent securely and automatically to Eid Passport for assessment and examination.

Background screening is the third step in this process. This procedure carries out a number of checks depending on the applicant's data. To start with, it authenticates the applicant's Social Security number that he/she provided., combined with identification shown in the issuance step, This step assists in ensuring that each vendor company worker is a foreign national legally eligible to work on the facility or a U.S. citizens. The program also carries out a one decade crime background screen and other felony checkups, including sexual offender and terrorist associations. This aids to thwart access licenses for known menaces. The program offers a confidential adjudication procedure for the employee to clear up errors in the background screening databases in case a he/ she does not pass any of the background screens.

If an applicant passes the background screening process, his RAPIDGate badges are immediately printed for him/ her according to Coast Guard design and specifications. As soon as the badge is successfully made, the Eid Passport sends it to the security office for distribution. The qualified applicants must present specific forms of identification to headquarters security officers before they can pick up their badges and become badge holders who are officially licensed to enter the facility. The directory of legal IDs is similar to the registry of I-9 documents used for distribution of other government ID badges.

The licensed employees are then are then capable of using their badges for swift electronic authentication when accessing the building’s headquarters. Fortunately the headquarters already utilizes turnstiles with card readers to assist access for workers and authorized contractors to enter the three lobby entrances and surface-mounted scanners at the loading dock access point. Headquarters worked with the project team to integrate a database with the access control system in order to eliminate the problem of multiple access badges.

Fulfillment of HSPD-12 Guidelines

Amongst the reasons why the Coast Guard selected RAPIDGate was its capability to help increase security and begin the processes required to abide by with Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12’s protocols. HSPD-12, "Policy for a Common Identification Standard for Federal Employees and Contractors," denotes an identification and verification process that is extremely resistant to terrorist exploitation, tampering, identity fraud, and counterfeiting. Also, it must be issued solely by providers whose dependability has been recognized by an official accreditation procedure. In addition, it must be issued based on sound and fair principles for verifying an individual worker's identity and character. And last but not least, is that it can be authenticated electronically and rapidly both at the same time.

The program methodology reflects the licensing procedure outlined in the Federal Information Processing Standard 201 to be used in HSPD-12 guidelines.

Security is vital even though efficiency is also important. The program has grown to be an important element of overall facility safety. The headquarters can deliver on its mission to protect the public, the environment and U.S. economic and security interests. By first making sure that the facilities are safer and more secure.

security data program access management system credential badge electronic fingerprints databases screening screen ID electronic authentication scanner identification