Cyber Security
The growing popularity of smart phones as Access control credentials By Scott Lindley, General Manager, Farpointe Data
18 | Asia Pacific Security Magazine
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martphones fulfill many needs, including telephone, camera, navigation, music, video, clock, news, calculator, email, Internet, gaming, contacts, and more. Security professionals creating access control systems need to be aware that 95+ percent of all adults 18-44 years own smart phones. Plus, 69 percent of the entire population already uses smart phones. That's babies through seniors. And, the average smart phone user touches their device 2,617 times a day ((Dscout Research)! Thus, practically anyone using an access control system already carries a smart phone. Another way to look at it is that every smart phone user, or almost everybody, could now easily download an access control credential. Mobile credentials are smart phone-based versions of traditional RFID cards and tags. Mobile credentials make it possible for smartphones, such as the Apple iPhone® and the range of Google Android® devices, to be used as an electronic access control credential. No longer will people need various physical credentials to move throughout a facility. Instead, a person's iPhone or Android smart phone, which they carry with them wherever they go, will have the credentials they need to enter into any authorized access system. In fact, such a system can reach beyond the facility
into their homes, their automobiles or at the gym. “Mobile has already disrupted so much in both our personal lives and the enterprise, but we are still tapping an old school badge on a door access reader,” David Anthony Mahdi, research director at Gartner Research says. “It’s a dichotomy. On one side we are doing all these amazing things with our phones but then we are still using 20-plus year old technology to get into our buildings.” Referred to as mobile or soft, smart phone based access control credentials are another version of traditional RFID cards and tags, joining proximity and smart card credentials to support a user as she moves about a secured facility. Gartner suggests that by 2020, 20 percent of organizations will use mobile credentials for physical access in place of traditional ID cards. Soft credentials provide several advantages over hard credentials. They are more convenient, less expensive and more secure. This is true for both end users and installers. They are more convenient because the user already has his credentials and already carries it with him wherever he goes. Credentials can be delivered to the end user in either paper or electronic form, such as via email or text. The dealer has nothing to inventory and nothing to ship. Likewise, the user sponsor has nothing to store, nothing to lose and faces no physical replacement hassles. Cost are lowered as nobody