The time and attendance clock on the wall looks perfectly harmless; you haven’t had to think twice when you put your finger on the fingerprint reader to clock in and out.

The digital pin pad on the inventory cage shines just as nicely as the day it was installed; six digits in the right order and in you go to retrieve the high-value item for the customer.

The combination lock to the medical supply room was put in for the opioid crisis; there have always been good reasons that not everyone should have access to potent medication.

Yet each of these security devices requires someone to touch them, and none of them self-clean or provide an easy way to sanitize them between uses.

Touchless technologies like RFID cards are great but they are too easy to lose and share.  Facial recognition is fast and works at a distance, but it isn’t very accurate, it doesn’t work with face masks, and frankly, it’s a bit creepy being monitored from long distance.  Iris is the most accurate biometric, works touchless, works with all personal protective gear except welding goggles, but isn’t widely deployed.

So is our touch-based security putting our essential workers at risk?  If you touch it or bypass it, then it surely is.