Having once lived in a gated community (barrio cerrado) I know how important security is, however most of them now take it to extremes.
Not long ago I went to collect an envelope from someone at a gated community in Pilar and, knowing in advance how they insist on knowing every damn thing about you before you can enter, I asked the contact to come and meet me at the entrance, because it also saves a lot of time and bother. However, he told me he was too busy, so I pulled up at the entrance where the efficient, uniformed security kid insisted that I show him my DNI, driving license, insurance and bike cedular/carnet. He then told me to remove my helmet to take a photograph of me and also to remove my mask, at which I refused. Naturally that put him in a position of enormous power saying that I wouldn't be allowed in if I didn't comply, so I lowered my mask and he took the mugshot.
There's a very good reason I now ask all customers to meet me at the entrance and this is it.
Yesterday I went to Nordelta with the simple task of collecting an envelope and then delivering it to a street near 9 de Julio in the center. Nordelta is huge and in order to enter you need to pass through the main security entrance and then a further security check at the gated community that you're going to visit. That in itself would rather complicate my wanting the customer meet me at the gate as it could be quite a long way. Furthermore, it was raining and all I wanted to do was get the job done and be on my way as quickly as possible.
Anyway, I pulled up, a kid in uniform approached me, I told him where I was going and he then walked around the bike as if he was inspecting it.
On finishing his appraisal he asked me if I had an exemption for the temporary license plate, so I asked him if he was a policeman, which he didn't answer, so I told him that I was not obliged to show such documents to civilians.
Naturally that gave him an instant hard on, whereupon he told me that without producing such a document I wouldn't be allowed in, so I had to fold. He then waved me forward to the cabin window where a girl in uniform asked for my DNI which she scanned and then asked me to remove my helmet and mask to take a picture of me. Again, if you don't cooperate you don't get in.
On my return twenty minutes later, I assumed that they would simply lift the barrier and I would be free. Wrong! I was again asked to show my fucking DNI and remove my helmet so that they could confirm that I was the same person who had entered paradise twenty minutes earlier and that I hadn't shape-shifted or morphed into a lizard.
At that, I told the uniformed little tyrant that the whole procedure was idiotic and a complete invasion of privacy, at which she told me never to bother coming back to Nordelta.
The passive aggression with which these little dictators deliver their rules and regulations is simply astounding and for a country that never stops complaining about being shafted by the state, they make a pretty good job of shafting one another at any given opportunity.
In future, all my customers are going to have to meet me at the gate, no exceptions.
