Multiple remote sites are no problem, as CLIQ cuts break-ins at a French public utility

The Communauté d’Agglomération, or district, of La Rochelle in western France operates 13 public waste reception centres which were experiencing frequent break-ins and theft of valuable recyclable material. The sites needed a major security upgrade — most importantly a reliable locking system with a track record of successfully protecting remote, dispersed premises.

Any new system would need to prevent physical keys from being copied then reused without authorization. It would require the flexibility to allow easy public access to the 13 sites during business hours, and to offer tailored access at designated times to maintenance staff, contractors or supervisors. It must also enable better workflow management for mobile security staff. Some are based up to 25 km from sites they protect.

Communauté d’Agglomération managers chose CLIQ key-based electronic access control, installing padlocks and cylinders at all 13 sites and issuing programmable keys to authorized staff.

The impact was instant: “The number of burglaries has been reduced in a spectacular way,” says Hervé Begaud at the Communauté d’Agglomération La Rochelle.

“We used to report damages every week. Now, we have had a single, failed, attempt on a cylinder in the last 6 months.”

Easy installation, efficient workflows
Programmable CLIQ locks are key-operated and wireless — a standard battery inside every CLIQ key powers the microelectronics — so new cylinders and padlocks can be deployed almost anywhere, including outdoors. They are waterproof and operate without problems in temperature extremes.

Now, security guards for the 13 La Rochelle sites carry a single CLIQ key programmed to open only appropriate locks. There’s no longer the need for managers to duplicate and then track multiple key copies. It’s easy for security administrators to update any key’s access permissions using the CLIQ Web Manager software. Should anyone lose a key, its access rights can be deleted. There’s no need to replace any locks, which saves time and money and boosts utility security.

Thanks to CLIQ technology, La Rochelle’s waste burglars are wasting their time — literally.

La Rochelle district administrators are impressed: they already plan to extend CLIQ access control to all critical municipal sites.