Prevent Toronto Lockouts

Toronto Ontario Locksmith (647) 990-5625

Prevent Toronto Lockouts

An Access Control System can be a powerful tool in your overall security plan that can help you to deter crimes, separate public from private areas and help control who goes where in your facility.

Access Control can be as simple as a lock and key or as advanced as a state of the art biometric reader that verifies your identity through a fingerprint, iris scan or blood vessel authentication.

Just about every home, office and vehicle utilizes a lock and key to secure the premises from intruders.

Keys have been widely used for hundreds, if not thousands of years. The first keys were simple wooden mechanical devices that used a rope strung through a door that was used to lift a latch or crossbeam. To lock the door, the rope was simply pulled inside.

The ancient Egyptians utilized the earliest recorded lock and key that used a slide key with bolt and tumblers similar to modern locks. These were made out of wood, and very few examples survive today.

Although modern lock and key mechanisms have come a long way and incorporate many new security features they are still susceptible to being lost and copied. In addition, there is an inherent weakness in lock and keys in that anyone with a key can enter any time they want, and there is no way to track who or when someone has entered your building.

Simple mechanical push button keypads/combination locks offer a step up to the standard lock and key configuration by requiring a personal identification number (PIN) in order to open the lock. This means that you no longer need to carry a key for the door.

In its most basic configuration, a mechanical push button lock has a single code that every user shares.

This is fine for many applications, unless you need to change the code due to turnover of an employee or because the PIN number was somehow compromised. The mechanical push button locksets require you to take apart the lock and re-adjust the mechanism in order to change the code that unlocks it.

The next level of stand alone locksets is battery operated electronic keypads that allow you to change the codes without disassembling the lock. Some of these locksets even support multiple codes for entry. By providing multiple codes, these keypads allow you to give a separate code to the babysitter, maid or security guard service. Most of these systems utilize standard batteries that support over 10,000 operations before they need to be replaced.

The 3rd tier for electronic stand alone locksets offer multiple codes, dual authentication through proximity, magnetic stripe or biometric templates.

These locksets normally provide an audit trail of individuals who have used the lock that can be accessed through a hand held device such as a PDA or a laptop computer. The dual authentication locksets will require a PIN number and a card, or a PIN number and a valid fingerprint for entry.

As these are stand alone locksets, they require you to enroll each and every user individually at the lock.

If you have multiple entrances with these locks, you will need to enroll separately at each one. If you need an entry report, you will need to download an audit trail from each lock and collate them separately. This can become quite a pain if you have more than a couple of doors and multiple users.

There are several options that need to be defined in order to provide you with the correct lockset for your application.

You need to know whether it is a deadbolt, mortise or standard knob set, what the offset is and decide which finish you want. You can get locksets in many different finishes with the most common being stainless steel and bronze.

If it all seems very confusing, consult a professional.

There are many companies that specialize in stand alone access control systems. Most of these locksets can be specially ordered to meet your specific applications.