Security badges are not a new concept, as they have been used in one form or another for several years. In many businesses, such as health care and universities, employees are required to display their ID cards at all times as a security measure. Similarly, parking passes for employees only allow authorized cars into parking garages, which also serves as a security measure for employees leaving late at night or alone.

Security for Visitors

These measures are effective for full-time employees but do not address how to control visitor access adequately. Many buildings will require that visitors sign in and include their destination in a logbook and on their passes. Other buildings will require that the guest's host be present or have given previous authorization for a particular visitor to be admitted into the building.

If you are going to issue security badges to visitors, you might consider using expiring badges. These change in appearance over the course of time and fully expire after a pre-determined period, thereby making them ineffective for future use. If you have an electronic security system that uses a card reader for gaining access, self-expiring badges are essentially equivalent to setting an expiration date on the card's function. However, the expiration can be seen by anyone rather than just being visible to the electronic card reader.

Vigilance is still necessary for such security badges to be useful. The entrance point(s) to your building should not be the only point at which ID badges are checked, as someone could maybe get through. Providing employees with badge holders and requesting that they wear them at all times can aid in identifying people that do not belong in your building.