The Department of Parliamentary Services is exploring ways to improve the security and speed of visitor access to parliament, with a club-like entry system among options being explored.
At senate estimates on Monday, chief information officer James Lawson confirmed the existence of a project to upgrade parliament’s card management system.
“We’re working very closely with our colleagues in the security branch on capabilities for that system, including guest access or sign-in access,” Lawson said.
“We’re also looking at some of the characteristics of the current system … around the time it takes to swipe a card and enter the building, noting that the technology that we use at the moment is very secure.
“There’s a range of different technologies out there in the card management and the access space but we’re exploring as part of a project at the moment.”
The department faced questions from Victorian Labor senator Jana Stewart over the management of access cards to parliament, particularly when staff ceased working for a parliamentarian.
The questioning also covered the use of paper-based visitor security cards, which Lawson, together with the department’s secretary Rob Stefanic said were under review.
“They’re not ideal and we are currently looking at a replacement system for those,” Stefanic said.
“The idea would be to automate a lot more of it so that the registration process is a lot faster and also I presume it would result in a printout that would be applied to some sort of medium that would be a bit more durable than the paper that they currently get.”
A greater use of automation could also reduce queuing for entry on parliamentary sitting days, he said.
“As you would’ve seen on a sitting day, the queueing is already a little bit tricky, which is another reason why the current system is a little bit slow,” Stefanic said.
“Obviously systems that are used by clubs and that process people a lot quicker [are] one of those systems we’re looking at, and they usually use ID as a method of processing.
“So there are systems out there – it’s just coming up with something that works with our policies.”