Secure sites

Four contractors compliant with their own package, and nobody to answer for a defect at the interface.

Divisions assembled: Physical and cyber security Secure buildings Networks and communications Power and backup supply

The issue

A site’s security never decays through its hardware; it decays through its interfaces.

Access control, intrusion detection, video surveillance, intercom and screening all describe the same event, seen from five angles. Bought separately, they leave the operator to correlate by hand what the system should correlate for them.

A power cut exposes the same division. An installation where cameras are backed up but the recorder is not retains no footage; one where doors are backed up but the guard post is not has nobody left to decide.

Then there is the clock. With no shared time between systems, the video sequence retrieved does not match the alarm it was meant to document, and the arrangement stops standing up at the precise moment it matters.

Five systems, one event, schematic

01Access control: Passages, refusals, forced or held-open doors.
02Detection and video: Intrusion, imagery, entrance screening. The same event, seen from another angle.
03Common clock: With no shared time, the video sequence retrieved does not match the alarm it was meant to document.
04Correlation and incident log: What the system brings together, the operator does not have to bring together by hand.
05Guard post: One detection chain, one on-call rota, one point of contact.
06Backed-up power: From capture to operation. Backing up cameras without the recorder retains nothing.

Schematic. The accented path is what is missing when five systems are bought separately.Typical figures. Common time synchronisation is what makes two logs comparable; without it, incident correlation does not stand.

Outcome

What you get

A site whose security events are correlated, timestamped on a common base and traceable; whose behaviour at the outage is decided door by door rather than endured; and whose operation rests on written procedures and a trained team.

Scope

What the solution includes

Zoning and policy: Division into zones, profiles and crossing rules, separate circulation for public, staff and deliveries, and compatibility with escape routes.
Access control: Readers and door devices suited to each leaf, controllers that decide without the network, holder lifecycle management, temporary permissions with expiry, periodic review of rights.
Detection and imagery: Intrusion detection, video coverage established by use — detect, recognise, identify — recording sized on the retention period adopted, extraction procedure and an audit trail of viewings.
Entrance screening: A screening point sized on peak-hour throughput, a secondary search area out of public view, written instructions and officer training.
Guard post and supervision: An incident log shared across systems, a common clock, event correlation, post ergonomics and continuity of its power.
Supporting infrastructure: Low-voltage routes sized at design stage, a separate security network, and backed-up power for the complete chain — capture, transport, recording, operation.

Sequence

How it is run

01
Survey
The site, its accesses and its circulation surveyed, the existing installation examined device by device, and a statement of what the structure allows — and what it will not.
02
Design
Zoning and coverage plans that can be held against us at acceptance, behaviour at the outage decided door by door, and a written reconciliation with evacuation obligations.
03
Execution
Works run under a single accountability, testing at the interfaces rather than package by package, and acceptance that exercises correlation between systems.
04
Entry into service
Written procedures, training for officers and operators, a first review of rights, and a programme of periodic tests recorded in a register.

Commitments

What is verified at acceptance

These commitments can be held against us. Written into a tender, they filter out the responses that will not hold — including ours, if it does not hold them.

A single accountability across all packages, named in the contract rather than at the first snag.
A coverage plan tying every camera to a use, which can be held against us at acceptance.
The behaviour of every door during a power cut, decided and documented, never left to the hardware default.
A common clock across every security system, verified at acceptance.
No security device obstructs an evacuation; the arrangement is verified with the regulatory inspection body.
The passage log, its retention period and its access regime are written before go-live.
Operating documentation is handed over in a format the operator can edit.

Before committing

Questions to settle internally

An organisation that cannot answer these questions is not ready to launch the programme. Saying so is better than selling it a study.

Who will run the system day to day, and how many people are present at night?
Which zones require identifying an unknown person, and which only need to detect a presence?
How long must the site stay protected with no external power?
Who withdraws the rights of someone leaving the organisation, and within what time?
What does an officer do when a prohibited item is found at the entrance?
What retention period for footage can the organisation actually justify?

Evidence

What we have delivered on this scope

International organisations2022
European diplomatic mission — multi-system security
Complete overhaul of access control, video surveillance and backup power for a chancery in service.
Systems merged
3
Service interruptions
0
Reference KP-2022-014
Enterprise and sensitive-site security2025
Industrial group — security supervision centre
A single control room for six sites whose security systems did not talk to each other.
Sites connected
6
Threat scenarios rehearsed before commissioning
3
Reference KP-2025-002