The Brivo ACS Onsite Aparato solution helps fulfill Homeland Security/Presidential Directive 12 (HSPD-12), intended to enhance security and reduce identity fraud at all federal facilities by establishing common identification standards for employees and contractors. ADT is the integrator on this on-going project.

The GSA project employs Brivo’s Aparato network appliance, a GSA FIPS 201-appproved solution, at each facility. Aparato is readily upgradeable to a full SaaS configuration, providing GSA with needed system flexibility for future HSPD-12 implementations.

The current project began with the McNamara Federal Building, a 27-storey structure in downtown Detroit that serves as home to many federal agencies, including the Internal Revenue Service and the Social Security Administration.

Brivo and ADT were also awarded a contract to implement similar systems for four GSA-operated buildings in the Chicago area. Among the five total facilities, card readers will be installed at 55 access points used by 8,000 employees from about 50 federal agencies.

Jeremy Niksic, GSA’s physical security specialist for the region that includes Chicago, said the agency wanted a system that was open and compliant with FIPS 201, the federal government standard that specifies Personal Identity Verification (PIV) requirements for federal employees and contractors. He said GSA also wanted to be able to use the latest PIV 2 standard for government-issued smartcards that provide enhanced interoperability and unify identity verification for use in both physical and logical access control.

“We felt that ADT and Brivo were fully capable of meeting all provisions of those requirements,” he said. Niksic also added that the new systems put GSA in position to transition toward cloud computing.

John Szczygiel, Brivo’s executive vice president said, “This solution provides the GSA with a modernised physical access control system that meets the latest requirements with a significantly lower cost of ownership than a typical client/server system. In addition, this platform allows the GSA to take full advantage of an infinitely scalable cloud solution in the future.”

John Gaydos, vice president for ADT Federal Systems, said the web-based system required no additional networking infrastructure on GSA’s part. “We are providing a secure, full-featured solution offering unlimited expansion and a wide choice of reports and activity logs, along with remote management and visibility for all authorised users via any Internet browser,” he said.

The GSA will also receive the liability protection benefits of ADT’s Safety Act certification and designation by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Since World War II, ADT has been the largest provider of electronic security services for the federal government.