Entrance Control vs Access Control: What’s the difference?

[freemexy]

If you Google ‘entrance control’ and ‘access control’, the search engine returns pretty much the same results. However, there are some subtle, but important, differences between the two which need to be understood before you start shopping for a security system which prevents unauthorised pedestrian access.access control system using rfid

Access control is an incredibly broad term used to describe a system which performs identification of users and authentication of their credentials, deciding whether or not the bearer of those credentials is permitted admission – this could be to a physical or logical asset. Both physical and logical access control is concerned with regulating who or what can access restricted areas, but logical access control refers to restricting virtual access to data, digital resources and computer networks, whereas physical access control restricts actual pedestrian footfall to buildings, rooms and other tangible assets.

In this article, we’re only concerned with physical access control, so from here on in assume that by access control we mean the physical kind.

Reflecting on the difference from the access control side of the fence, Ray Phillips, Managing Director at ACS Ltd., comments: “Access control is a discriminating authentication process. Entrance control takes the output of that validation and either grants or denies access as appropriate. We create the software and hardware that defines the criteria for acceptance or denial, and Integrated Design Limited create the intelligent hardware that has the capability to see whether this criteria is being adhered to, for example the ‘one card, one person’ rule, and respond accordingly.”If access control verifies authorised personnel using their credentials – their face, fingerprints, PIN number, key card etc – and decides whether or not they are permitted access, entrance control is the system which enforces that decision, by either opening to allow users to cross a threshold, or remaining closed to bar entry and potentially raising an alarm.

Tony Smith, Major Accounts and Marketing Manager at Integrated Design Limited, comments: “A card reader may act as an access control device, recognising the card holder as having the correct permissions and saying ‘yes, this person can pass’. But, it’s the entrance control system – a turnstile, for example – which actually physically allows or denies the access. So, entrance control enforces the correct use of the access control system, keeping people honest by making them present their credentials in the correct way, before allowing entry.”