John Fenske, Vice President of Product Marketing, HID Global, offers some trends to watch in access control.
Corporate organisations, small and medium-sized businesses as well as institutions such as schools, universities and hospitals share the same concerns about improving the user experience, with access control solutions that are simple and convenient. As the physical access control systems (PACS) marketplace continues to evolve, there are five distinct trends emerging which organisations should be aware of as they plan their future access control strategies.
Increased innovation fuelled by the move to interoperable platforms based on open standards
The industry is well into its transition to access control platforms based on open standards, creating the opportunity for organisations to move beyond static, proprietary access control architectures to more secure, open, and adaptable solutions that support demand for new products and technologies. Innovation will accelerate in an industry that is now free to pursue new capabilities, without the fear of being anchored to legacy or obsolete software, devices, protocols and products.
The adoption of new credential form factors
Today’s solutions meet growing demand for new credential form factors, including mobile devices that offer a secure and convenient way to open doors and parking gates. During the rest of this year and beyond, we will see the transition to a single card or phone that can replace previous mechanical keys and dedicated one-time password (OTP) solutions for physical and logical access control. Using Bluetooth Smart or Near Field Communications (NFC) technology on cards or phones, users will be able to “tap in” to gain access to facilities, VPNs, wireless networks and cloud- and web-based applications. This will enable users to take advantage of an access control ecosystem that provides a seamless user experience and can flexibly scale and adapt to the organisation.
More convenient ways to open doors and gates
Bluetooth Smart short-range connectivity technology is one of the most exciting drivers for the adoption of mobile devices for access control. Combined with gesture technology, it offers the additional user benefit of being able to open doors from a distance by rotating a smartphone while approaching a mobile-enabled reader. This gesture-based technology capability will create new ways to open doors and gates, and will enable a range of additional future applications.
Advances in managing identities
As physical access control applications merge with logical access control applications, they will also both merge onto cards and phones, leading organisations to manage multiple ID numbers for, multiple uses, on multiple devices. This will create the need for more centralised identity management systems that are easy to use and support multiple application identities with different lifecycles, while also ensuring security and privacy for online transactions.
Using biometrics to help change security from a barrier to a guardrail
The industry will continue moving toward a biometric authentication model that is focused less on technology and more on the user experience. Biometric templates will also move with user IDs onto mobile devices. Meanwhile, credential delivery and management will grow in importance, using cloud-based solutions into which all entities have been biometrically authenticated.
