HID Global sees gradual shift from smart card readers to NFC

BANGALORE, INDIA: We are about to embark on a new generation of access control technology in which mechanical keys - and even plastic smart cards - are either replaced - or at least augmented -- by digital keys and portable digital identity credentials that can be securely provisioned onto NFC-enabled smartphones and other mobile devices.

In an interaction with CIOL, Ranjit Nambiar, director of sales, India and SAARC, HID Global shared insights on applications of NFC technology day-to-day businesses that are set to take off in India.
Excerpts:

CIOL: Can you share with us your journey from RFID cards to NFC

Ranjit Nambiar: HID Global comes with identity security background which means we are into business basically securing identities. Identities could be in any form. It could be in biometrics, access control, IT authentication, card control. If you look at the core of our technology, most of the solutions of what we have, Radio-frequency identification (RFID) is one of them. So we extensively use RFID with respect to secure identity solution.

We have other businesses also which are non RFID centric. So it's a secure identity business with RFID as a core technology is what we use. We have come out with a new series of physical access control readers which are NFC enabled. The platform is called the ICLASS
SE. ICLASS is a brand of HID.

We have come out with a new platform of physical access control readers which are called ICLASS SE. The key feature differentiating it from the previous platform was that these readers are Near Field Communication (NFC) enabled. NFC has has been extensively used in the smartphones which logically means that smartphones which are coming with NFC enabled chip can be used for access control. That's probably the way business will move in the future.

So that's the key innovation if you want to look at it from the physical access control side.

CIOL: How do you plan to take this new NFC enabled readers to the market?

RN: We are in talks with the large IT companies. Most big companies can't migrating from 4000 - 5000 HID readers in one shot as there are lots of approval processes for the same. But companies are going for the NFC enabled readers at their new sites.

So over a period of time they will migrate onto the platform. We are also in talks with our key end customers on sales interaction model.

CIOL: How do you seen the potential of extending NFC technology for ticketing or other such transactions in India?

RN: NFC technology was traditionally introduced for the banking sector; financial side is where it came in. Now we have taken the NFC technology and started moving it towards the access control. This whole NFC technology is basically a communication between the mobile phone and the reader. It's not access control data, we can load Biometrics onto the same chip. We can employee information loaded onto it; we can use it for canteen application. If we really want to extend it then we can use it for e-ticketing also.

When I say e-ticketing, its usage for metros would be a logical extension here. Some of the early adopters of the Metro transportation system like Korea and Japan use something technology for payment transaction on the metros. In India, we still have a card which is given to us like a monthly pass or weekly pass or something similar but those countries have already migrated to the mobile phone. Which means that the mobile phone becomes a sort of a converged device which can be used in our offices for access control environment and also for e-payments which is a true logic of how NFC came into the system.

I don't think there is a limitation for NFC. It's all about getting your handle on the NFC technology from a development perspective. So there will be applications.

CIOL: When can we expect the second generation of applications arroud NFC?

RN: When smart cards came into the picture for access control 10 years ago, there were whole lot of application developers who came in on the smart card platform and started developing different applications. Whether it is ecash application or whether it is store application or biometric application, library applications, time & attendance application, logical access. Similarly, today there is ecosystem of developers who are already there on the smart card platform.

For example, if we look at education, there are a complete list of developers who have developed apps for education management system which means a student will be given a smart card and the student can use it to for his time and attendance, leave records, library book issuance, etc. So there are many applications where the smart card has been used. That's at a more mature stage now.

But as NFC becomes popular, and we believe that NFC on access control, we will be able to drive to a level of critical acceptance, at that point of time you'll see a lot of application developers coming on NFC. That's when the other applications around NFC will start becoming more popular.

CIOL: Don't you thing the lack of cross platform support would hider developer interest?

RN: It works on any mobile platform till the time there is an NFC enabled chip in it, traditionally the new age smartphones with NFC chip, barring Apple as Apple doesn't have an NFC enabled chip and haven't gone to that space. But there are other ways to make it NFC enabled. It's not a limitation as there are multiple ways to add-on NFC. We can have it on SM based also. If there is an SD Slot, we can use it in SD slot also.
If its coming integrated into the circuitry its fine and increase if it is not coming in then you can add-on the NFC chip onto the SD slot including the iPhones. Infact, iPhone comes with an accessory which is NFC enabled.