Related article: Hidden costs of traditional lockers
Card, mobile credential, payment and security
Though details are not available at this time, CR80News has confirmed that Assa Abloy is working with Apple on their efforts to add student ID cards to Apple Wallet. The company shared the following statement exclusively with CR80News:
“This fall Apple is bringing the ability to add student ID cards to Apple Wallet. ASSA ABLOY are excited to be working with Apple to help facilitate some of the new capabilities. When student ID cards are added to Wallet on iPhone or Apple Watch, students and faculty will have an easier and more convenient way to open doors, make payments on and around campus and enable contactless student ID functionality.”
Stay tuned to CR80News as we will continue to update as more information is available.
The rumor mill always starts turning ahead of an Apple event, and it was no different in the lead in to the company’s Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) this week. Among the rumors again this year, was the anticipated opening up of the NFC chip’s capabilities to enable additional services to use the short-range communication protocol.
Anyone who has followed Apple’s work with NFC will have heard this before, so while it’s nice to hear Apple discuss NFC, we were naturally skeptical of what would be on show at WWDC. Still, we watched in anticipation that this year’s Developer Conference would provide some long awaited news regarding NFC and the student ID card. We got a glimpse.
The student ID card officially made its appearance on the Apple stage in the watchOS portion of the keynote. Apple Technology VP, Kevin Lynch, announced that this coming fall the student ID card will soon be available to add to iPhone and Apple Watch for access and payments on campus. The integration will enable students to add their campus card to the Wallet app on iPhone or Apple Watch to support access to places like dorms or libraries, as well as support payments at locations across the campus.
Lynch went on to reveal that the initiative will launch this fall. According to Apple documentation, "the program launches with Duke, the University of Alabama and the University of Oklahoma this fall. Johns Hopkins University, Santa Clara University and Temple University will bring the capability by the end of the year."
While the prospect of iPhones and Apple Watches being used as credentials on college campuses is certainly exciting, there is also a trend in the early adopter campuses. Though Blackboard wasn’t mentioned by name in the keynote, each of the flagship campuses listed on stage is a Blackboard Transact client and the company has now confirmed its role alongside Apple in bringing this technology to the campus card industry.
When reached, Blackboard indicated additional details will follow, but responded with the following:
“We’re excited to confirm that we’re working with Apple to help bring the ability to add student ID cards to Apple Wallet. Beginning this fall, students, faculty and staff will have the opportunity to seamlessly access facilities and make payments at locations on and around campus with the iPhone and Apple Watch. This capability offers students and the broader campus community heightened security and extraordinary convenience, taking advantage of compatible terminal/reader devices from Blackboard.”
Apple’s brief acknowledgement of student ID card being used with its flagship hardware is a bit of a watershed moment for not only Blackboard, but for the campus card industry as a whole.
Blackboard has been pushing campuses to NFC since it shipped its first NFC-capable readers in 2010. Since then hundreds of campuses have deployed tens of thousands of the company’s NFC readers for access control, attended and unattended payments and privilege control. To date, the credential they have used has been the NFC compliant contactless card, but both the company and its campus clients have always looked to the day when they could also use the mobile phone as a student ID credential.
The challenge until now has been that only Android phones have offered support for this feature via the handset’s embedded NFC chip. Apple added NFC to the iPhone 6 in 2014, but restricted its use to only to its own, proprietary Apple Pay service and then later to limited tag reading functions. Until this announcement, using NFC on the iPhone in “card emulation” mode – that is, to act like an ID card in campus card systems – was prohibited.
As we in the campus card market understand better than perhaps any other market, multi- application is crucial. Modern students demand that their campus credentials support the full range of transactions across the campus, from door access to vending and privilege tracking to dining hall entry and payments. Today’s keynote was an important step in the right direction.
Immediately following the WWDC event, Apple added a review of the major announcements online. Under a header "Student ID Cards. Major Campus Access" Apple describes the upcoming feature: "Access the dorm, gym, library, campus events, you name it. Just add your student ID card to Wallet. Then hold your Apple Watch near the reader. You can also pay for snacks, laundry, and dinners around campus with just your watch.”
The universities highlighted on stage at WWDC have been hard at work with the technology for some time now. They, along with countless other peer institutions across the country deployed NFC-capable readers believing this day would come. And while additional details will emerge in the coming weeks and months detailing how this service will work in the wild, today’s announcement offers the first validation of this strategy.
There’s a growing demand among college students for smart lockers – a safe place on campus to store expensive belongings like smart phones, laptops and tablets while they’re taking a test or hitting the gym, a lab or a campus event. Equipping lockers with contactless technology can offer students a smart option for storing their valuables without having to remember a locker combination or wait in line for a rental. Instead, students simply tap their existing contactless campus card to engage the secure contactless locker. But how does the smart locker ROI – or contactless locker ROI – equation come together for campuses?
Institutions can make money off rental fees, and there are solid cost savings on the manpower needed to manage and maintain smart lockers
The return on investment can be significant for universities that install contactless lockers. The potential exists for institutions to make money off rental fees, and there are solid cost savings on the manpower needed to manage and maintain the lockers. “A networked locker system eliminates virtually all the staff time required for locker management, as students no longer need help obtaining or using the system,” says Gerhard Pichler, business development manager for Gantner Technologies.
For decades, Gantner has delivered contactless technology for lockers in universities, athletic clubs, spas, hospitals and corporate centers around the globe. Now the company is bringing the technology to colleges and universities in North America.
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Related article: Hidden costs of traditional lockers |
In addition to revenue and cost savings potential, smart lockers can provide universities with intangible benefits as well. Contactless lockers can serve as a recruitment tool, positioning the institution as modern and tech-minded. And both students and their parents appreciate the security aspect of the lockers, which can feature alarm functions to protect electronics and other valuables.
The key to contactless smart lockers is that they are networked and communicate in real-time with the management software. This enables efficient assignment, monitoring and revocation. Gantner’s locker management software also offers occupancy monitoring, which helps the institution maximize locker rentals by identifying unused lockers and overstays.
Contactless lockers are still relatively new to U.S. higher education market. Charting the course domestically is Northeastern University, where in 2016 Gantner installed more than 1,200 networked, contactless lockers.
There’s a growing demand among college students for smart lockers – a safe place on campus to store expensive belongings like smart phones, laptops and tablets while they’re taking a test or hitting the gym, a lab or a campus event. Equipping lockers with contactless technology can offer students a smart option for storing their valuables without having to remember a locker combination or wait in line for a rental. Instead, students simply tap their existing contactless campus card to engage the secure contactless locker. But how does the smart locker ROI – or contactless locker ROI – equation come together for campuses?
[blockquote align='right']Institutions can make money off rental fees, and there are solid cost savings on the manpower needed to manage and maintain smart lockers[/blockquote]
The return on investment can be significant for universities that install contactless lockers. The potential exists for institutions to make money off rental fees, and there are solid cost savings on the manpower needed to manage and maintain the lockers. “A networked locker system eliminates virtually all the staff time required for locker management, as students no longer need help obtaining or using the system,” says Gerhard Pichler, business development manager for Gantner Technologies.
For decades, Gantner has delivered contactless technology for lockers in universities, athletic clubs, spas, hospitals and corporate centers around the globe. Now the company is bringing the technology to colleges and universities in North America.
|
Related article: Hidden costs of traditional lockers Evaluating smart locker ROI in contrast to old school lockers. |
In addition to revenue and cost savings potential, smart lockers can provide universities with intangible benefits as well. Contactless lockers can serve as a recruitment tool, positioning the institution as modern and tech-minded. And both students and their parents appreciate the security aspect of the lockers, which can feature alarm functions to protect electronics and other valuables.
The key to contactless smart lockers is that they are networked and communicate in real-time with the management software. This enables efficient assignment, monitoring and revocation. Gantner’s locker management software also offers occupancy monitoring, which helps the institution maximize locker rentals by identifying unused lockers and overstays.
Contactless lockers are still relatively new to U.S. higher education market. Charting the course domestically is Northeastern University, where in 2016 Gantner installed more than 1,200 networked, contactless lockers.
Under the name HID FARGO Connect, HID Global unveiled what it calls the industry’s first cloud-based card issuance solution for the personalization of both ID cards and mobile credentials.
If you present an ID card printer to the Internet it is an unsecured device so you need to protect it ... The HID FARGO Connect Console serves as the secure element between the printer and the network.
By replacing the old paradigm of standalone printers tied to dedicated PC workstations, this new offering enables secure personalization of ID cards from any location and from any web-enabled device. It lets system administrators remotely monitor and manage consumables, as well as introduces greater visibility into the entire credential issuance process.
“HID FARGO Connect is the biggest innovation that the ID card issuance industry has seen in more than a decade, and with it HID is changing the way cards and credentials are issued forever,” says Craig Sandness, Vice President and Managing Director of Secure Issuance with HID Global.
In traditional card printing environments, one ID card printer was typically controlled by one dedicated workstation. In this new environment, ID card printers are connected to the Internet just like networked paper printers commonly are in offices. For secure ID printers, this topology has been largely avoided for its security limitations.
The HID FARGO Connect consoles serves as the secure element between the cloud and the Internet-connected ID card printers
With HID FARGO Connect ID card printers are edge devices on the network, or more accurately on the cloud, and can be communicated with through secure web-enabled devices.
“If you present an ID card printer to the Internet it is an unsecured device so you need to protect it,” says Sandness. “The HID FARGO Connect Console serves as the secure element between the printer and the network.”
This physical piece of equipment, called the HID FARGO Connect Console, functions as a gateway between the cloud and the printers, holding the Identrust digital certificates and ensuring that only trusted instructions are delivered to the printers. According to Sandess, one console can support numerous printers, and he says that they have already driven as many as six printers from a single console with the capacity to run more.
He adds that they never store personally identifiable information (PII) in the cloud environments.
Aligning with the popular Apple Store concept and experience, card office employees outfitted with tablets now meet students proactively. The personalization data and photo can be captured from anywhere in the office or out.
Today, the solution is able to support a couple of key one card and security systems providers, but the intent is to open it up to the entire channel, explains Robin Tandon, Director of Product Marketing of Secure Issuance at HID Global.
The HID Global physical identity and access management platform, Quantum Secure, is an early example of a security solution that supports HID FARGO Connect. In the education vertical, one of the leading providers of campus ID card solutions, CBORD, is already supporting the technology.
Among the first issuers to use HID FARGO Connect is Kent State University, a CBORD campus card client. According to university officials, the issuance of thousands of student IDs during orientation has been streamlined and the student experience improved through its shift to the new cloud-based approach.
Universities across the country issue millions of pieces of plastic every year so that students can make purchases, access facilities and prove identity for applications both on and off campus.
The vast majority of cards issued in higher education are made exclusively from polyvinyl chloride – or PVC. This is the cheapest and most common card material available, and for applications where the use is short term and counterfeiting is of little concern, 100% PVC could be a fine choice.
But when a card needs greater lifespan and increased security, universities may want to consider composite cards made from advanced card materials. These materials can add durability to the card and make them more difficult to counterfeit. The trade off is an increased cost per card, but in virtually every other secure card market, issuers are finding the benefits exceed the added cost.
Many assume the standard CR80-sized plastic card is a single piece of plastic die cut from a large sheet, but the truth is a bit different, says Pierre Scaglia, global segment manager for Secure Credentials at PPG Industries.
A typical card issued by a campus card office includes multiple layers of white plastic made from PVC with a clear PVC layer on top. The clear layer contains the variable information, such as photo and demographic information, he explains. The card can also include an overlay or laminate layer with a security element such as a hologram that is added during the personalization process.
If the card includes electronics – such as a contactless chip and antenna array – those are sealed in a sheet of plastic and placed in between the PVC core layers, Scaglia explains.
“This basic PVC card offers fairly low levels of security,” he says, alluding to the fact that it can be easily and inexpensively counterfeited.
PVC cards are everywhere, likely due to their extremely low cost. They are personalized using readily available desktop printers, which are available online from countless resellers and auction sites along with the PVC cards and printer ribbons required to create extremely passable fakes.
In summary, 100% PVC cards are great for fast, convenient and low cost ID creation, but they are susceptible to fraud and rank low on the durability scale.
Instead of constructing cards only with layers of PVC, composite cards layer different materials to add advanced features and combat counterfeiters. Composites are the go to options in the high-security identity document market and are being used in driver licenses and national ID cards across the U.S. and around the globe.
“The importance of Level 1 document security features cannot be understated … they are the front door locks in any design…” This comment from the UK National Document Fraud Unit succinctly states the importance of Level 1, overt security features to the overall documents security.
We classify embedded card security features – or document security features – into three levels: Level 1, Overt; Level 2, Covert; and Level 3, Forensic.
In a nutshell, Level 1 features are overt and visible to the naked eye. This makes them easy to authenticate by inspectors in the field. Level 2 features are covert, which means they cannot be seen by the naked eye and are only discernable by trained examiners using under magnification or via some other technique tool. Finally, Level 3 features are described as forensic in nature and require trained examiners and complex laboratory equipment for authentication.
ITW Security Division’s white paper on card security features, Level 1 Security – Long Live the King!, focuses on the importance of Level 1 overt features in document security.
An exploration of the specific embedded security features – from holograms and microtext to UV inks and nanotext – for each level is presented in the document. While each feature and each level is important and should be pursued, the crucial nature of solid Level 1 features emerges.
The emergence follows a series of interviews carried out by ITW with leading companies in the security market. These companies spanned 3 continents and included manufacturers, integrators and security printers. Of those interviewed, 100% reported that Level 1 features are in highest demand.
But just as these quickly visible features are becoming more necessary, fraudsters are getting better at counterfeiting traditional Level 1 options. Thus, there is an increasing need for new, advanced document security features that meet Level 1 criteria.
Learn more about document security features in general and explore new options for advanced Level 1 security features in this white paper. It is part of a series of resources on advanced card materials and embedded security features available from ITW. Check it out online.
At the annual National Association of Campus Card Users (NACCU) conference, Bill Norwood was presented with the inaugural award for Lifetime Achievement in the Campus Card Industry.
He spent the first half of his career with Florida State University leading the campus' information technology and computing departments. Norwood launched the pioneering FSUCard program helping to create the framework for the campus card industry and the card model that institutions nationwide would later adopt.
For three decades he assisted many, if not most, of the card programs across the country through his work with the FSUCard, the university's Card Application Technology Center, CyberMark and later Heartland Payment Systems.
Norwood is responsible for a number of firsts in the campus card industry – from ISO numbers and color images on cards, to bank partnerships and financial aid delivery to student IDs. He was one of the five original founders of NACCU, and he enjoyed a long career that spanned both the university and vendor sides of the industry before retiring in early 2017.
For his many contributions, incredible spirit and personal friendship, the CR80News team is extremely proud to honor Norwood with this inaugural award. Hereafter, the award will be presented and named in his honor as The Bill Norwood Lifetime Achievement Award.
Check out the video from the award presentation for more highlights of Bill Norwood’s career.
Hidden below Northeastern University in Boston is a network of tunnels that serve as a passageway for students traversing between key buildings on campus. Unlike the famous tunnels in other cities, these don’t hold catacombs and no Phantom lurks within. Instead Northeastern’s tunnels house one of the world's leading deployments of advanced contactless lockers.
On winter days or rainy evenings, the 16,000 square-foot underground network is particularly appreciated by students. It links 11 major locations above ground, including academic buildings, residence halls, gyms and libraries.
As a part of a facelift that included new energy efficient lighting and colorful directional signage to facilitate travel, the popular – and sometimes hard to obtain – student lockers were upgraded and expanded.
The networked contactless lockers from Gantner Technologies are used around the world at athletic clubs and spas, ski resorts, corporate centers and universities. And in the summer of 2016, Gantner added another university to its user base with the installation of more than 1,200 new lockers at Northeastern.
All 1,286 of the tunnel’s lockers are larger than their predecessors – now 3 foot by 2 foot. Each locker is marked with a letter and number code, identifying its location within the tunnel system.
Students rent the lockers through the university’s myNEU portal and use their student ID – the Husky Card – as the contactless key for locking and unlocking. The lockers are rented on a per-semester basis, and thanks to the Gantner locker management software no staff interaction is required to sign up for or operate a locker.
At the myNEU student portal, all available lockers can be viewed. The student selects the locker of their choice, and the locker is linked to the unique ID number of the individual’s Husky Card. For the remainder of the semester, only that contactless card can provide access to the locker.
The Gantner locking system guarantees the safety of belongings by delivering networked alarms to maintenance and security staff if vandalism is detected. The software also provides locker usage reports, remote locker control and occupancy monitoring.
