Near Field Communication: The next wave in mobility

BANGALORE, INDIA: The rise of the much talked about 'Paperless era' was a direct effect of the PC revolution. Similarly the world is edging closer towards a ‘cashless society' thanks to the much talked about NFC or Near Field Communications. With NFC the conventional use of credit cards and other related business activities will just become a thing of the past as it provides exciting new ways to share information, make mobile payments, and interact with your surroundings. Hence this wireless technology promises to transform the way we shop, travel or even transfer data. Organizations from sectors such as transport, banking, payment, entertainment, hospitality, and retail, across the globe, are looking to take advantage of the benefits of this exciting new technology.

A recent study by Gartner indicated that 50 per cent of smartphones in the near future will be NFC-based. In fact, incumbent smartphone players have already started testing this technology to be used within the enterprise and are in the process of rolling out more smartphones with NFC capabilities.

Applications

NFC presents many exciting opportunities moving forward. We believe that this exciting technology can extend well beyond mobile payments and will enable our lives to become much more convenient as programs become integrated, all while remaining secure and reliable. We are encouraging our customers to think about how they will include NFC and contactless transactions in their mobile commerce strategies and customer interactions in the future. Besides NFC can also be used in a variety of other applications such as:

Ticketing: Gaining access to gigs and shows

Travel and transport: bus, train, metro and airline access

Access and Identity management: 1) Using NFC for physical access to secure premises instead of having a fob or separate security access keycard.2) Storing and displaying physical ID cards on a smartphone

Sharing: Using NFC to share electronic business cards, photos, files or data with other people just by tapping smartphones

Smart surveys or feedback: smart cards which use NFC technology to capture information with a touch or press of a smart foil.

The global standard for payment

'Contactless payment' is the most popular form and talked about form of NFC over the last few years. This method of payment has traditionally been achievable through a 'contactless payment card', looking much the same as a regular credit or debit card but with the card's chip housing NFC technology. This is set to grow and develop quickly, and we hope to see smartphones increasingly take the place of traditional cards for many consumers.

Mobile payment systems, although in existence for long, are experiencing slow adoption rates and a lot of security issues. MasterCard PayPass a "contactless" payment feature based on the ISO/IEC 14443 standard which enabled cardholders to make a payment by simply tapping a payment card or other payment device, recently certified 17 smartphones including BlackBerry, android and non-android smartphones. Blackberry Bold 9900/9790, Blackberry Curve 9630/9380, the Nokia 603, Lumia 610 as well as HTC-One X, LG Viper 4G LTE, Samsung Galaxy Nexus HSPA+, Samsung Galaxy S Advance and Sony Xperia S are some of the android phones on the list.

This certification essentially means that they meet the functionality, interoperability, and security requirements of MasterCard for contactless mobile payments. Especially in the field of mobile payments where security is a paramount need, there is significant need for a holistics approach to security and collaborative effort between OEMs and finance agencies. Thus it is highly appreciated by the industry that BlackBerry devices are FIPS certified, the most recent being the BlackBerry 10 platform being FIPS 140-2 certified. FIPS (Federal Information Processing Standard) certification provides confidence to security-conscious folks and organizations dealing with sensitive information, that data stored on smartphones running BlackBerry operating systems can be properly secured and encrypted. The NFC technology is extremely popular owing to major benefits like convenience, speed and interaction but security remains an imperative.

BYOD and NFC

But how will this steer the future of mobility? From a corporate perspective, mobile devices that are NFC enabled are heralding a new age for managing identities in the enterprise, offering security and other capabilities enabled through developments in NFC. As BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) becomes more commonplace at work, this could very well address such concerns and do away with the existing badges or ID cards by allowing employees use their smartphones as ‘digital keys' to gain access into their work environments. Essentially, what NFC does here is to identify the card reader and authenticate all information about the employee before giving access. Additionally, the use of NFC for allied services such as clocking in time and attendance, at food courts and vending machines or even for logging into work stations, has been fuelling further demand for this technology.

Consequently, while enterprises take advantage of the flexibility of mobile access, they must also ensure that security is not compromised. It will be a challenge to maintain the required consistency, reliability and interoperability within the NFC mobile ecosystem in an organisation unless there are appropriate standards to manage backend systems and secure contents, exchange messages or to simply download and personalize applications.

Providing a trusted and secure communications channel for transferring information between NFC-enabled devices and the other devices, enabling employees manage security by revoking NFC applications or services when a device is lost or stolen and allowing users the access to their personal data in real time are some of the areas where organisations can stay secure while making the employee experience more convenient. It is imperative for IT managers to have a robust plan and implement policies that support such access controls. As physical and logical access controls converge, it also brings the urgency to create cloud-based data security for these devices.

Leveraging the right mobility solution can support any user with an NFC-enabled smartphone to enable a "mobile wallet" application and provide the infrastructure that will securely manage information credentials for NFC services. Enterprises can also avail from a suite of comprehensive web-based services and solutions for managing physical access credentials. The platform should ideally provide businesses with the tools to create, use, and manage identities for both traditional badges and digital credentials on NFC-enabled smartphones. From the employees' perspective this could help them centralize their security access to their smartphones, while from the point of view of the enterprise, such a centralized web-based management platform would provide a solution to keep a check on employee turnover, tracking, and so on.

As the uptake of mobile NFC is expected to increase significantly, it also has the potential to explode into new business areas. Therefore, organisations need to be ahead of the curve when it comes to security-related issues with the adoption of NFC and should be aware of the issues involved and ensure that users are educated in its risks and can protect themselves against threats at the workplace or outside.

The author is director, Enterprise Sales, at RIM India.