The electronic key is gaining wide acceptance in North America

It's A Revolution

The electronic key is gaining wide acceptance in North America

Opening a door with anything other than a metal key was once unimaginable, but a growing number of openings are using an electronic key. After years of hearing about the wide acceptance of smart card technology in Europe and of its impending integration in the United States, it appears that the smartcard revolution has finally arrived.

In the 1990s, acceptance of smart technology in the United States lagged behind Europe and Asia because the United States already possessed what at that time was seen as a highly advanced telecommunications and banking network. Lack of strong telecommunications infrastructures, increasing rates of identity fraud, and the high cost of processing information drove Europe and Asia to quickly adopt technology that could address these acute challenges.

Initially, most smart cards originally introduced in the U.S. were contact cards, whose limitations generated increased access control system maintenance and chip and reader damage. There was the perception of going backwards in technology from proximity back to contact technology. This is just one of the many misconceptions regarding the capabilities of and privacy issues related to the latest smart card technology. However, as much of Asia and Europe has already adopted contactless smart technologies as the new standard for security, transportation and identity management systems, the question is no longer if or when smart technologies will reach North American shores. They already have. The real question is how to overcome those misconceptions and harness the power of this revolutionary technology.

PROXIMITY VS. SMART CARDS

Proximity cards have long been the standard for access control credentials in the United States. These credentials use RFID technology to communicate between a card and reader. The reader translates the information from a card into a digital format read by a host panel/computer that makes the decision to authorize a person’s entry. These systems became widely accepted due to their convenience (reading a credential presented within several inches of a door or reader) as well as greater transaction security when compared to magnetic stripe and barcode technologies.

Smartcards are typically credit card sized, plastic credentials containing a microprocessor chip that serves the dual functions of communication and extensive data storage. Although it is packaged in the form of a card, it operates like a personal computer in that it can store data, manipulate data, and perform functions like mathematical equations.

In the same way that keys unlock various rooms in a building, smart cards normally contain application fields/sectors secured by special, application-specific security keys. These sectors can contain information for various applications, such as access control, cashless vending, mass transit and payment systems, securely separated from one another by security keys.

Smartcard credentials can be contact or contactless. Contact cards are similar in operation to mag-stripe cards in that they must be swiped or inserted into a reader to be read. They are recognizable by the gold chip visible on the outside of the card, which must make contact with the reader. If you recently received a new credit or ATM card, you probably noticed one of these chips on the face of it.

Contactless smart cards use RFID technology, which may appear identical in operation to a proximity card to the average user. However, contactless smart cards have 100 times the information storage capacity, work on a different radio frequency and have far greater data security than a traditional proximity card. Although most new applications of smart cards appear to be heading toward contactless smart technology, contact smart cards are still the standard for logical (computer) access and other applications, such as payment systems.

CHOOSING THE RIGHT PRODUCT

Transitioning to contactless smart products now will avoid the use of obsolete and outdated systems while providing the best avenue for system expandability in the future. However, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to access control and security, said Erik Larsen, national account manager—Electronic Integrators, at Allegion. As always, the key is to achieve a balance.

“Typically, security, technology and usability are the key priorities,” Larsen said. “The goal is to balance priorities for each organization. In a clean room environment, for example, usability may be the driving priority because handling keys, cards or keypads may not be conducive or convenient. In that scenario, the client likely needs a biometric solution.”

“Many people try to select credentials by leading with the technology,” he said. “Instead, they should be finding out about the user, the applications and the culture. The right technology will follow once those things are understood.”

IMPLEMENTING A NEW SYSTEM

The smart card credential is used for more and more transactions beyond access control such as vending, transit and logical identification. For example, the encoding process will require more forethought and expertise on how to integrate credentials with back-end software, financial/billing programs, ID systems, vendors and more. Cards can either come pre-encoded from the factory, or companies can choose to manage their own card issuances, with or without the help of an integrator.

“A smart card does not come out of the box ready to do everything it is capable of doing,” said Derek Hileman, an access control consultant. “Oftentimes, the client expects the integrator to encode the cards, but the reality is that architecting a smartcard is a specialty area of integration. The integrator who installs your hardware is not always the same one who can encode your cards. These are two different and distinct skill sets.”

Hileman likens a system integrator to a general practitioner and a card integrator to a specialty physician. And the latter, he said, is a young, but growing specialty among integrators.

If that specialty doesn’t exist within your integration firm, Hileman recommends forming partnerships and alliances in order to successfully service a client’s comprehensive security needs.

Matt McDaniel, Multicard CEO, a full-service identification and security integrator, said the planning of card encoding starts well before the actual process of it.

“Before you can encode cards, let alone select the type of smartcard, you must first go through a thoughtful process that evaluates how the cards will be used, whether that’s access control, vending or printing,” McDaniel said. “Then you have to figure out what needs to happen on the back end to allow the various transactions, as well as how the transactions will be managed on an ongoing basis.”

With so many technical details to work through, the entire process can take 12 to 18 months to implement. While arduous, McDaniel said companies are motivated to go through the process and implement smartcards because of their many benefits.

“The bottom line is that a smartcard is like having a computer chip on a card,” he said. “Even when customers may feel like the process is long and cumbersome, they stay the course because they realize the significant advantage of using a card with massive data storage. Smartcards allow organizations to enhance security, reduce fraud, consolidate services and save money over the long run. They are more than worth the time investment upfront to fully maximize their functionality.”

WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD?

Industry experts expect the trend of using credentials for multiple transactions to continue in an upward direction, gaining more traction in the next three to five years. A far more powerful card, protected by superior data transmission security, clearly presents numerous advantages and potential applications to explore. Consumers prefer the simplicity of waving a card near a reader to the archaic swipe method of presentation. Vendors enjoy the benefits of that simplicity, as well as the lower maintenance inherently associated with contactless systems.

The smartcard revolution is clearly in full swing. Be sure to incorporate this technology in your next credential decision-making process.

This article originally appeared in the January 2016 issue of Security Today.

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