either to a physical door or a gate
or to a logical or virtual item like
a laptop for example. The target
for both is to secure valuable assets
and people or intellectual property
or goods of any kind.
Solutions for the world of
physical access control, like RFID,
have been around on the market
for a long time, while the IT
industry has been set on the PKI
(public key infrastructure) solu-
tion that for years, for cost and
security reasons, has been built
round a contact chip.
Today, these worlds are merg-
ing and it is possible to make an
RFID as safe, if not safer, than a
contact chip. Consequently, there
is a movement towards using more
RFID.
Many companies believe it is
more secure to combine logical
and physical access in one man-
agement system. For example,
if a person does not have entry
authority for a door into a server
room and this is logged in the
system, he or she should not get
access to log in to the IT system.
Cost is another factor: it is
cheaper for a company to handle
one card internally for both
worlds.
In general, the usage of RFID
smartcard based units is grow-
ing and this includes both online
readers, semi online readers, as
well as offline systems. Also, the
usage of NFC phones is growing
fast and many experts within the
industry forecast it will continue
to grow. The access control market
is driven not only by security
issues, but also by convenience
and cost efficiency and the new
technologies are cheaper and more
easy to use than classic cylinders
and keys.
Logical and
physical access control
In the last couple of years, logical
and physical access control has
started to converge. Theoretically,
the difference between logical and
physical access control is not very
big.
It is all about giving access
The world market for electronic
physical access control equipment
was estimated to be worth about
$2.7 billion in 2011, according to
a recent study by IMS Research.
Blake Kozak, Senior Research
Analyst at IMS Research says:
"The Americas, EMEA and Asia
regions each have unique drivers
for growth and technology adop-
tion. For instance, EMEA has
been the hardest hit by the recent
economic climate for traditional
access control (readers, cards,
panels and software); however, this
region was the largest and second
fastest growing for electronic locks
(which includes digital cylinders,
electromechanical locks and
mechatronic locks) in 2011 driven
by the utilities, commercial and
transportation end-user sectors."
Americas at the forefront
He stresses that the Americas
market is at the forefront and is
being driven by new technology
trends such as access control as
a service and NFC. "For Asia,
biometric technologies continue
to evolve. The biometric reader
market in Asia is larger and more
mature than the Americas and
EMEA markets due to the large
number of local suppliers and
their widespread use in access
control as well as applications
such as national identification and
banking and ATM authentication,
for example", he says.
access control
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Access Control
Movingtowardsopenstandardsandinteroperability
The adoption of smart cards continues to grow in
europe, while the Americas has emerged as the fore-
runner for Security-as-a-Service and web-based ac-
cess control systems. On top of that, NFC (Near field
communication) is growing and systems are becom-
ing increasingly more open. In this article, detektor
explores the main trends for access control.
By Henrik Söderlund
In the last couple
of years, logical
and physical ac-
cess control has
started to con-
verge. Theoretical-
ly, the difference
between logical
and physical ac-
cess control is not
very big.
Blake Kozak, Senior Research Analyst
at IMS Research.