What Smart Cards Can Do for Your Campus
Smart credentials improve physical and logical access control, and help improve campus business functions. Selecting the right technology and laying the groundwork for deployment are the keys to success in upgrading your systems.
How to Lay the Groundwork for Smart Credentials
It is very important that campuses be prepared for smart credential deployment, even if the facility wants to continue using the proximity, magnetic stripe or keypad readers that are already installed. One way to start preparing for the migration to smart cards is to deploy multi-technology credential readers and electronic locks that combine the ability to read both proximity cards and smart cards in just one reader as new installations take place. This way, when the organization makes the transition to smart cards, it won’t have to replace all of its current devices when the move happens. During the transition, current staff members will be able to use their current credentials and new employees can be issued and start using the new smart cards. This allows the institution to transition the rest of the staff on a reasonable timeline and according to budgets.
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Also, choosing the right smart card can make all the difference when trying to use them with applications other than access control. Campus decision makers should look for platforms that are open format rather than proprietary. Open formats allow easy integration into other applications with minimal programming, speeding up the time of deployment, reducing the cost of implementation, and giving campus officials more freedom to get the most out of their investment.
Be Smart about Your Next Choice of Credential
Hospitals and universities can immediately begin budgeting for and deploying smart card technology in their facilities. Smart credentials will deliver increased security to staff, patients, students and visitors while providing campus employees with increased functionality and efficiencies. Deployment is easy, and migrating can be stress free when using the right solutions.
Smart Cards: What Are They Exactly?
Within a smart card, a microchip allows information to be stored and modified right on the credential. This means that information can be both read from and written to using compatible devices. This differs from the popular proximity credential because information on this card can only be read. The increased functionality of smart cards offers campuses greater flexibility in how credentials can be used.
While functionality is very important to the purchasing decision, increased information storage and transmission makes security one of the top reasons to choose the right credential when implementing a successful credential strategy. Some smart cards offer several different layers of security, including mutual authentication, which ensures that the reader and the card are allowed to talk with each other before any information is exchanged. Smart cards can also provide encryption.
Diversified keys, another component of some smart cards, can virtually ensure no
one can read or access the holder’s credential information without authorization. A message authentication code ensures complete and unmodified transfer of information, helping to protect data integrity and prevent outside attacks.
How Colleges Can Realize Cost Savings
The secure access solutions available with open system smart credentials have several return on investment (ROI) implications. For example, when a smart card program is introduced, it immediately solves the problem of forgotten passwords, a nemesis for both users and administrators. Schools will reduce overhead costs simply by not having to administer passwords.
Also, the roll-out of smart credential solutions for physical access control is typically done in tandem with the implementation of card management systems that involve card issuance, personalization, access rights, management and post-issuance. Such solutions simplify management processes, making them more cost-effective.
For instance, by introducing smart credential-based authentication, a campus can immediately reduce the number of staff members needed to manage and control access to residence halls, recreation centers, laboratories and other buildings that only authorized students and staff should enter. By demonstrating their reduced risk in terms of intruders gaining access to their facilities, colleges and universities can affect marked savings on insurance premiums.
Matthew Conrad is director of global innovation and customer experience for Ingersoll Rand’s Healthcare Practice.
Related Articles:
- Your Physical Access Control Cheat Sheet
- Building Enterprise-Class Access Control Solutions
- Case Study: UT Arlington’s 1-Card System Does It All
- 7 Steps to Updating IDs for Maximum Impact
- The Ins and Outs of Physical Access Control
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