Complacency is one of the most common causes of a security breach. The insider threat remains the most overlooked.
Accreditation isn’t just admin; it’s a frontline security measure.

We must learn from incidents across the world. Breaches like the one at Singapore’s National Stadium have exposed significant weaknesses in accreditation systems, particularly in pass security. In that case, an individual was able to forge a fake pass and gain unauthorized entry to the venue, bypassing standard ticketing and access control procedures.

When fake credentials can grant access to restricted areas, it’s not just a process failure — it’s a failure of protection.

Ask yourself:

• Do your staff understand the value of their passes?
• Are they trained to report suspicious behavior or potential theft?
• Can your accreditation system detect tampering or credential fraud in real time?

If the answer is no, then you’re not in control. You’re simply hoping nothing goes wrong.

These simple techniques can reduce your vulnerability to this threat:

1. Include a photo. The easiest way for your security team to check whether a person is who they say they are, is to include a photo on the badge.

2. Add access permissions Consider specific colours or icons to show what a pass entitles the holder to do and where they are allowed to go. make sure access permissions are clear on the badge and that your security team know what it all means.

3. Use a unique ID If you hide a unique ID number for every person in a bar code, QR code or RFID chip, a quick scan at your access control points will instantly be able to tell you if that pass is valid.

4. Use anti-counterfeit measures Holograms, black light ink, or micro printing make it very difficult for anyone to forge a badge or ticket.

5. Change designs Large venues or recurring events are sure to have a high churn of temporary workers. Don’t issue ‘season’ badges for agency staff – changing the colour of your badge for each event will make it easy for your security team to see if anyone is re-using old passes. Even better, issue a new unique ID for staff at every event and a quick scan of the badge will tell you if their pass is valid.

Good practice tips

• Use large-format badges to make the visual ID of photos or access zones easy for your security team. No one wants to be squinting at credit card sized passes all day.
• Ensure that there is something on the back of the pass. When people share photos of their badges or tickets online, they almost always display the front. No one knows what is on the back.
• Your staff need to know they are prohibited from sharing images of their badges online.
• Print and distribute badges as close to the event as possible to reduce the opportunity of copies.
• Keep designs confidential and allocate unique IDs as late as possible.

 

Time to talk?

Get in touch if you are interested in talking all things accreditation – info@accredit-solutions.com