HEADLINE NEWS
U.S.: University Tests Mobile Access Control with MicroSD Cards
The two-and-half month trial enables 32 students and staff to open the outer doors of a dormitory at the university by tapping their smartphones on readers. An ID application, similar to one issued by the university on contactless cards, is stored on the microSD cards. Some of the trial participants can open individual dorm rooms by tapping the phones and entering a PIN. Participants are using the BlackBerry Bold 9650, Apple’s iPhone 4 and some Android smartphone models made by Samsung in the trial. The BlackBerry and Android models are inserted with microSD cards with tiny built-in antennas and an additional antenna stuck inside the back covers of the phones. The iPhones come with contactless phone sleeves with microSD-card slots. HID said the microSDs can be provisioned and managed over the air.
While the trial uses an NFC bridge technology, HID, a large provider of corporate badges using contactless cards in North America, sees access-control applications on full NFC phones as an opportunity and so does BlackBerry phone maker Research in Motion. RIM and HID are working together on putting corporate badges on NFC-enabled BlackBerry Bold and Curve models by early 2012.
* Trusted Service Manager: Defined loosely to include companies or other organizations securely distributing, provisioning and managing applications, generally over the air, on secure elements in NFC mobile phones; or licensing their platforms for this purpose.
N/A: Not available or not applicable.
Last update: Sept.. 2011
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