Sweden's Lund University had been leaning on the same access control system for nearly 20 years, but a new security overhaul has seen the university's Faculty of Law outfitted with a new system from ASSA ABLOY.

In many respects, Lund University is like any other large institution in that it serves a constantly evolving population of students, professors, researchers, support staff and visitors. The campus community also requires access to various campus areas and facilities. But when it came time for a security upgrade, the university wanted to avoid a campus-wide recard -- a particularly expensive proposition as Lund was already issuing smart cards. The university decided on Aperio wireless locks to control access for its campus community of nearly 50,000.

A major factor in the decision was the seamless integration between Aperio locks and Pacom’s Unison security management platform, which had been previously implemented at the university. The battery-powered escutcheons and cylinders, complete with card readers, are fully integrated with Pacom’s Unison system and have been installed wirelessly at the university's Law Faculty.

Aperio locks also work with the university’s existing MIFARE smart cards, so there was no need for 42,000 students and some 7,500 staff to return their cards for reprogramming, or to reactivate their permissions using update readers. The new locks are also managed centrally from a single administrative interface, so the transition has gone largely unnoticed by students and staff.

Wireless locks, and the flexibility they offer, now has Lund University officials refocusing efforts to more security-related endeavors, and spending less time on legacy practices like key management.

Because the locks can be managed online, security personnel can block lost or stolen cards immediately without the need to visit the door to replace a lock. Equally simple is revoking privileges for any staff or student that leaves the university. There’s no changing locks and no security threat associated with lost or copied physical keys; a feature that also saves the university on hardware-related costs.