By now you’ve had time to digest some of the latest industry offerings at the ISC West show. Securing facilities post-9/11, IT relationships and integrated systems continue to be some hot topics of conversation. Another topic with as much importance is securing access to areas using an ID that integrates multiple uses of technology.
With the increase in global B2B and B2C Internet commerce, it has become increasingly difficult for parties to truly know with whom they are dealing. The driving force for multi-technology IDs is to insure the authorized, legal identity of the person in both the physical and virtual worlds. Multi-tech cards integrate two or more separate technologies into a single piece of plastic, without sharing information between these technologies. Technologies may include proximity, magnetic stripe, bar code, contactless smart chip, contact smart chip, Wiegand strip or barium ferrite loads. The card evolves from being simply a carrier of technology to an ID credential with the addition of a photo ID, digital watermark, hologram or other form of secure ID data printing, which serves to enhance the security of the card.