In the modern world security is very important. We have to protect personal data, premises and ensure that our systems don’t get hacked. But I sometimes wonder whether we have ascended  to stratospheric levels of paranoia. Do some solutions actually end up causing more problems than they solve?

Take a solution to “Tail Gateing” I have recently experienced. Tail gateing is where someone who is not an employee of a company stands behind someone who is an employee, waiting for them to swipe their entry card so that they can be followed into the building, to presumeably commit theft or whatever.

The solution to tail gateing, apparantly, is that everyone has to swipe into one of the many and varied ways into the building, even if there is someone ahead of them who has already swiped a door open. This allows the computer to know that they are “In”.

On leaving the building everyone has to swipe out of one of the many and varied ways out of the building, even if there is someone ahead of them who has already swiped an door open. This allows the computer to know that they are “Out”.

All well and good until you forget to swipe in or out.

So imagine that you forget to swipe out one day. They next day when you attempt to swipe yourself in, the computer will think that you are still in from the day before and will therefore not unlock the door and let you in. Effectively you are stuck out because you are obviously not the person who the computer thinks is in.

But of course it is easy to get round this foolproof security measure. You simply wait for someone to come along to the door that did remember to swipe out, and therefore can swipe in, and open the door because the computer will know that they were out and not in. You can then follow the person in, and then swipe on the inside of the door so that the computer then registers you as out, thus allowing you to pop back out in order to swipe yourself in legitimately.

Assuming of course then when you went in to swipe out you didn’t let the door close and lock behind you before you could nip out again. Because in this case the computer will now think that you are out even though you have just succeeded in getting in.

So it doesn’t really solve the problem of tail gateing. It just makes you lose track of whether you are in or out or coming or going.