Incident Record: Apartment Security Register

Incident type: Routine visitor access attempt. Date: Current. Status: Ongoing. Currently at step three of four.

The Record

6:31pm: Visitor arrived at main gate. Provided name and resident's flat number to gate security. Gate security called the resident. Resident confirmed. Gate opened.

6:33pm: Visitor reached the internal security desk. Asked for: name, phone number, resident name, flat number, purpose of visit. Visitor provided all five. Security guard wrote in register. Security guard asked visitor to sign. Visitor signed.

6:35pm: Security guard called the lift. Lift arrived. Visitor entered lift. At this point, a second security guard who had been observing the previous steps asked the visitor's name.

6:35:30pm: Visitor provided name. Second guard nodded. Lift doors closed.

6:36pm: Visitor arrived at floor four. Resident was waiting at open door.

The Analysis

The visitor's name was provided four times. Their phone number was provided once and written in the register. The resident's flat number was provided twice. The purpose of visit was provided once and recorded as "meeting," which is the category that covers all purposes of visit.

The resident was available for confirmation throughout this process and confirmed at step one. Steps two through four were conducted without reference to the resident's confirmation.

The Purpose

The security register serves a legitimate purpose: a record of visitors in the building. This purpose is served by step two. Steps three and four extend the record into territory where the primary function is the act of recording rather than the information recorded.

The visitor has been checked three times. The visitor is the same person at each check. The information is the same at each check. The building is now certain.

The visit lasted twenty-two minutes. The access procedure lasted six.