When you think about a credit card company’s security measures, the first thing that comes to mind usually pertains to protecting against fraud and identity theft. Typically you only interact with your credit card company through the digital space, and we hear of security breaches with retail locations more often than we would like.

However, a challenge that is often overlooked is perimeter security for a company’s physical corporate locations. How does a major company hold itself to the highest level of access control security without creating an inconvenience for employees coming and going? These days, it’s not enough to have one point of security and access control at the front desk. Companies must validate admittance at the first point of entry — vehicle parking.

The corporate security team at one of the world’s largest credit card companies identified this vulnerability and looked to 3M for help. Together, they were able to cultivate a solution that utilized 3M automated license plate recognition (ALPR) to ensure efficient and effective perimeter security and access control.

“With an operation of this magnitude, it was important that the process be seamless and efficient,” said Amy McKeown, marketer for 3M’s commercial security business. “By working together to develop a clear understanding of what our customer was trying to accomplish, we were able to recommend a 3M product that isn’t typically used for access control: ALPR. This unique use case ticked all the boxes that this security upgrade required to make drastic security improvements.

Designed to help improve access control using a vehicle’s unique identifier — the license plate — the 3M automated license plate recognition (ALPR) solution enhanced the company’s perimeter security and access control without creating an extra process for its employees.

Replacing a cumbersome keypad and introduced to create greater efficiency, 3M worked with the company’s engineering and development team to ensure the ALPR cameras communicated effectively with the existing security management system. The credit card company is able to upload a list of authorized names and corresponding license plates to the server, so when a known employee vehicle drives up to one of the site’s nine entry points, the camera signals the security gate to open automatically. This also provides the company with the ability to chronicle all license plates (individually) for a specific location and a record of everyone entering and leaving the premises.

Employees can rest assured knowing there’s now an additional layer of security and perimeter surveillance, without any additional steps or inconvenience.

Since the successful launch of 3M ALPR cameras at its U.S. headquarters in 2014, the global credit card company has decided to expand the program to several more of their global campuses in the coming years.