Identive Opens the Door to Physical Access with NFC-Enabled Smartphones

Identive Group, Inc. announced a revolutionary way to enable the use of mobile phones to open doors and log on to computer networks. For the first time, users can enjoy the freedom of an open standards-based solution with government level security to gain access to buildings and IT networks using NFC-enabled smartphones.

In the industry’s first open standards-based solution for NFC-enabled physical access, the government-grade access authentication protocol known as PLAID is integrated with the secure processor within an NFC-enabled smartphone. When used with Identive’s new line of TouchSecure readers, the NFC smartphone replaces traditional secure physical access credentials.

“NFC was developed to bring simplicity to everyday mobile interactions,” said David Holmes, vice president Mobility and NFC Solutions for Identive. “By introducing an open source industry standard authentication protocol on top of NFC, we have for the first time provided a way for customers to invest in NFC technology for physical access, with confidence that the solutions will be interoperable with other standards-based offerings while providing a high level of security.”

With nearly 300 million NFC-enabled smartphones forecast to be on the market by 2014, one of the most recurring requests from government and commercial organizations is the ability to integrate smartphones into existing high security physical access environments. With this groundbreaking, truly open standards-based technology from Identive, customers can use their choice of key fobs, traditional cards and mobile phones interchangeably.

“One of the main drivers for the use of smartphones as replacements for traditional access badges is to reduce the expense and management of lost and forgotten cards; mobile phones are less likely to be misplaced or left at home, for example,” stated Joe Tassone, Identive’s executive vice president of technology and product management. “Security also plays a factor in organizations’ decisions to utilize smartphones in lieu of key cards, as mobile phones can be remotely and securely managed employing “over the air” (OTA) techniques for credential issuance and updates.”

By leveraging an existing international standard, this new NFC solution augments Identive’s commitment to vendor interoperability and a single, secure customer ecosystem for physical and logical access, as well as additional applications such as payment and cloud security.