“Policies and frameworks scripted to protect critical assets remain ineffective unless a robust control is in place to enforce them,” says James Evelyn, EVP of compliance solutions at Force 5. This holds true in the power utility industry, where NERC mandates the appropriate implementation of the critical infrastructure protection (CIP) standards. Unfortunately, manual, or antiquated controls often relied upon leave critical assets vulnerable to human risks, inefficient processes, and ultimately costly violations that could’ve been easily avoided.

Force 5 is ideally positioned to mitigate these challenges with its time-tested and innovative enterprise product design to protect critical assets of the power utility industry. The product is in production at large and small power utilities across North America.

Force 5's flagship product, Gatekeeper, is a robust platform for power utilities to consolidate and automate the enforcement of physical-entry requirements in every facility. Gatekeeper enables clients to elevate their risk-averse, compliance-based stance with a proven, audit ready solution for contractors and visitors. With this state-of-the-art solution, clients can validate escorts and vet unauthorized personnel in critical spaces, ensuring critical asset protection at all times across transmission and generation sites, control rooms and even corporate lobbies. Gatekeeper is also recognized for its ability to provide audit-ready evidence in a click, constant situational awareness, and continuous risk assessment.

“Our mission is to help power utilities reduce human risk in critical spaces, specifically around unauthorized entry,” states Evelyn.

Force 5 remains true to its mission by leveraging a unique blend of hardware-software solutions to ensure Gatekeeper’s consistent performance, regardless of the environment, use case, location, or user type. The platform delivers escort-driven or self-service workflow kiosks and traditional guard-assisted visitor management workflows to vette visitors and enforce business rules to safely and securely log visits that are compliant with corporate rules and regulatory standards. The combination of a powerful matching engine with biometrics and facial recognition capabilities enables it to check individuals’ names against various watch/do-not-admit lists and identify personnel even if they try to enter under an alias.
Unlike manual, error-prone visitor logs with limited capabilities, Gatekeeper is designed to give in-depth, actionable insight regarding the identity, purpose, and eligibility of personnel entering the facility. Captured data is usually archived for reporting, forensics, and analytics. The platform provides situational awareness through dashboards where users can view all visit and visitor information, send events to access control monitoring software, and leverage emails, texts, and voice notifications regarding all aspects of a visit.