3G at the workplace: Same queue, different day?

Since 24.11.2021, the 3G rule has been in force at the workplace, and employers are responsible for compliance.  If you don’t want to waste precious working time, you need central, up-to-date identity management – and not just during the pandemic.

The Corona situation has literally given access control a new direction: Whereas previously the main aim was to prevent unauthorized persons from taking material assets and company secrets out of the company, in times of the Covid 19 pandemic it is now additionally necessary to prevent the entry of viruses. Hygiene-oriented access restrictions are not only required by law, but are also more than advisable for the employer, because a Corona outbreak can quickly bring the assembly lines to a standstill – and the company into the headlines.

But when 3G is implemented in the workplace, the weaknesses of outdated identity management often become apparent: Vaccination and testing records must be checked day after day – for every employee, including vaccinated and recovered ones. This leads to long queues at the gate, new burdens for managers due to certificate management in the so-called “supervisor model”, resentment among the workforce – and, above all, a lot of lost time.

Intelligent integration of the vaccination, recovery or tested status into identity management provides a remedy. Because statistically it is to be expected that most employees are already immunized anyway. This is also confirmed by Markus Siebenmorgen, press officer at Bayer AG’s Leverkusen site, where the demand for the company’s own testing station is limited thanks to the high vaccination rate. For those who have been vaccinated and those who have recovered, the certificate test only needs to be carried out once and is then valid for a longer period of time. After the check, a corresponding status is set in the digital identity that unlocks access. Tested employees also only need to identify themselves once per test cycle. The system ensures that access authorization expires automatically when the certificate expires – to the minute and with optional notification to those affected and responsible.

This is where an ID management system like IDfunction, with central database but highly flexible in operation, shows its strengths: Thanks to the consistently browser-oriented operating concept, checkpoints can be set up quickly and their results transferred to the central database via a wide range of end devices. Once the 3G status has been determined, it is immediately available throughout the group, so that all the doors that have been activated for the employee in question are immediately accessible. If the certificate has expired, it is immediately ensured that no access is possible even at remote branches before a new test.

The large number of inquiries we receive regarding 3G integration in access control also shows a change in thinking in many industries: Whereas a year ago the pandemic was often regarded as a temporary phenomenon that was to be countered with improvised measures, it is now becoming increasingly clear that Covid-19 will be with us for a long time to come.

Those who rely on a flexible and central identity management system today, however, are ahead of the game even after the acute threat situation has been overcome: they save manpower in the simple creation of ID cards for regulated access to lockers or machines, in visitor management, and in resource and object management.