Short answer: Tailgating prevention in an office building depends on verifying each person at the turnstile without slowing the morning peak. Edge.AI by Proptech.AI adds hands-free facial recognition to your existing turnstiles and card system, tying entry to the enrolled person rather than a lendable badge. Because it reuses existing hardware instead of adding guard hours, it is the most cost-effective proptech upgrade for a lobby.
Key takeaways
- Tailgating means following an authorized person through, while badge sharing means lending the credential itself; a card-only system struggles with both.
- A guard and badges cope at quiet times but cannot check every face against every badge when hundreds of people arrive within minutes.
- Owners pay in guard hours and badge reissues, and tenants carry the risk of theft and strangers on their floors.
- Facial recognition at the turnstile verifies the person rather than the card, while the turnstile itself governs passage.
- At 330 Madison and 101 Greenwich, Edge.AI was integrated with existing turnstiles and card-based systems for 24/7 secure access.
What is tailgating, and how is it different from badge sharing?
Tailgating is following an authorized person through a door or turnstile without presenting a credential; when that person knowingly holds the door, it is often called piggybacking. Badge sharing is different: the credential itself is lent, so the system records the wrong person.
Both exploit the same weakness. A card system confirms that a valid card was presented, not that its owner is the one walking through, and a lost badge keeps working until someone reports it.
Why can’t badges and a guard keep up at peak times?
Because the morning rush outpaces human attention. A large tower can see hundreds of arrivals in a few minutes, and no guard can compare every badge photo with every face while also answering visitors.
- People hold doors and wave colleagues through out of courtesy.
- Turnstile alarms during the rush are easy to tune out.
- Visitor queues at the desk pull security away from the gates.
Adding guards raises payroll, but the system still verifies cards rather than people. A proptech fix has to change what gets verified.
What does tailgating cost owners and tenants?
More than the occasional incident report. Guard hours, badge reissues and incident follow-up recur every year, and tenant confidence is on the line at renewal time.
Illustrative example: assume a multi-tenant office tower with a staffed turnstile line. Every figure is an assumption; use your own.
- Peak-hour officer: assume one extra officer posted at the turnstiles for 4 peak hours each weekday at $30 per hour. 4 x $30 x 250 days = $30,000 per year.
- Badge reissues: assume 150 lost, lent or forgotten badges replaced per year at $10 each, including desk time. 150 x $10 = $1,500.
- Incident follow-up: assume 6 reports a year of an unknown person on a tenant floor, each taking 5 hours of security and management time at $50 per hour. 6 x 5 x $50 = $1,500.
Total: $30,000 + $1,500 + $1,500 = $33,000 per year, before the cost of any serious incident. Swap in your own staffing and incident data and test the total against a subscription quote from Proptech.AI.
How does AI turnstile access verify each person without slowing the line?
By making the face the credential. Tenants enrolled in Edge.AI facial recognition access control walk up to the turnstile and are recognized hands-free, so there is no badge to tap, lend or lose.
The turnstile and Edge.AI each have a job
The turnstile’s own barrier and sensors still govern how many people pass per entry. Edge.AI confirms that the person presenting is the person enrolled, raises alerts on suspicious spoofing and fraud attempts, and uses multiple sensors for which Proptech.AI specifies 99.9% accuracy. Tenants who opt out can present an RFID card or a phone-based QR code, and guests arrive through app-less visitor pre-check-in rather than a desk queue.
Why the reader hardware matters
Pull an older all-in-one biometric reader off the wall and you can expose its network link, lock relays or panel cabling, and the device may leave with the user data inside it. Edge.AI splits the hardware so the part people face at the turnstile holds neither the sensitive connections nor the data, which matters in a public lobby.
| Lobby approach | What it verifies | At peak times | Recurring cost drivers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Badges at doors | That a valid card was presented | Doors held open for groups | Badge printing and reissues |
| Badges plus a lobby guard | Cards, with spot checks of faces | Guard attention split with visitors | Guard hours and reissues |
| Turnstiles with badges | A card per passage | Lent and lost badges still work | Reissues and alarm response |
| Turnstiles with Edge.AI | The enrolled person, with spoofing alerts | Hands-free flow for enrolled tenants | Subscription, with fewer cards to manage |
What happened at 330 Madison and 101 Greenwich?
Both New York City buildings added Edge.AI to existing turnstiles and card systems. 330 Madison, part of JLL’s portfolio, has 855k RSF, 39 floors and 6 turnstiles, with hundreds of people moving through the building every minute. Proptech.AI linked its solution to those turnstiles and to the card-based access control system, combining Appless Self Enrollment with facial recognition to deliver 24/7 secure access.
101 Greenwich, managed by JLL, has 1,500 tenants, 480k RSF, 25 floors and 6 turnstiles. Before Proptech.AI, it depended on manual counting and a limited access control system, and the team behind the building credited Proptech.AI’s work in its BOMA Pinnacle Award speech.
Proptech.AI’s Edge solution was the missing piece to our security puzzle at 101 Greenwich. We replaced our limited access control system with six Edge.AI sensors installed on six turnstiles, resulting in unparalleled security and 24/7 secure access.
Jones Lang LaSalle, 101 Greenwich
The testimonial is headlined “Increased our property value 130%.” That is one customer’s statement about one building, not a result to expect elsewhere.
How do you add face verification to the turnstiles you already have?
Integrate first, as both buildings did. Edge.AI talks to the existing panels over Wiegand, leaving the card system and every badge in service while faces, QR codes and analytics join them.
You can also run Edge.AI in parallel on one turnstile bank during a pilot, use a hybrid setup with integrated lobby turnstiles and standalone amenity doors, or retire the legacy system and run Edge.AI as a standalone platform. Cloud and on-prem hosting are both supported. See the guide to adding facial recognition to existing access control and the overview of access control for commercial real estate.
What privacy rules apply to facial recognition in an office lobby?
That depends on the building’s location, so start with consent and alternatives everywhere. Edge.AI opens enrollment with a biometric privacy consent screen, gives tenants who decline QR and RFID options, deletes data on request and keeps PII apart from the device and the management console.
In New York City, Local Law 3 of 2021 obliges covered commercial establishments (retail stores, food and drink establishments and entertainment venues among them) to put up signs at customer entrances when they gather biometric identifier information, so check whether ground-floor retail or dining is covered. In a May 2023 policy statement on biometric information, the FTC cautioned that unsupported accuracy claims can be deceptive, so ask every vendor to back up its numbers. This is general information, not legal advice.
Frequently asked questions
Preventing tailgating in an office building means verifying each person at the point of entry, not just their card. Turnstiles control passage, and facial recognition such as Edge.AI by Proptech.AI confirms that the person presenting is the enrolled tenant, with alerts on suspicious spoofing and fraud attempts. Pre-registered visitors, clear policies on holding doors, and QR or RFID options for people who opt out complete the approach.
Tailgating is when someone follows an authorized person through a door or turnstile without presenting a credential, often unnoticed. Piggybacking usually describes the same thing when the authorized person knowingly lets them through, for example by holding the door. Badge sharing is a third problem, where the credential itself is lent. Facial recognition access control addresses badge sharing directly because the credential is the enrolled person.
Yes. Edge.AI by Proptech.AI can be integrated with existing turnstiles and card-based access control systems via Wiegand. At 101 Greenwich in New York City, Edge.AI sensors went onto all six turnstiles and were tied into the existing card-based system, and at 330 Madison the solution was integrated with the building’s turnstiles and card system using Appless Self Enrollment and facial recognition.
Edge.AI is built for quick, secure access, and enrolled tenants enter hands-free with no badge to find or tap. 330 Madison, a tower where hundreds of people pass through every minute, had Proptech.AI’s solution integrated with its turnstiles for 24/7 secure access. Visitors who complete pre-check-in on their phone also skip the desk queue, which frees security staff to watch the gates.
Tailgating costs depend on staffing and incident history, so estimate them from your own figures. For example, an extra officer at the turnstiles for 4 peak hours each weekday at $30 per hour costs $30,000 a year, before badge reissues and incident follow-up are added. Compare the recurring total with a subscription quote for Edge.AI from Proptech.AI, which adds facial recognition to existing turnstiles.
Close the gap at your turnstiles
Find out how Edge.AI would connect to your lobby turnstiles and card system. Guard hours and badge costs make a natural benchmark for a subscription quote; request one, or a demo, via sales@proptech.ai or the contact form at the bottom of this page.
