Contactless cards are both robust and flexible, giving security professionals the ability to reduce maintenance costs, improve employee productivity and increase security.

Contactless smart cards offer advantages to both the organization issuing the card and the cardholder. The issuing organization can support multiple applications on a single card, consolidating an appropriate mix of technologies and supporting a variety of security policies for different situations. With hybrid and dual-interface cards, issuers can also implement systems that benefit from multiple card technologies.

There are three primary contactless technologies considered for physical access control applications: 125 kHz, ISO/IEC 14443, and ISO/IEC 15693 technologies.

125 kHz read-only technology is used by the majority of today’s RFID access control systems and is based on de facto industry standards rather than international standards. 125 kHz technology allows for a secure, uniquely coded number to be transmitted and processed by a back-end system. The back-end system then determines the rights and privileges associated with that card.

Contactless smart card technology is based on ISO/IEC 14443 and ISO/IEC 15693 standards. Cards that comply with these standards are intelligent, read/write devices capable of storing different kinds of data and operating at different ranges. Standards-based contactless smart cards can authenticate a person’s identity, determine the appropriate level of access, and admit the cardholder to a facility, all from data stored on the card. These cards can include additional authentication factors (such as biometric templates or personal identification numbers) and other card technologies, including a contact smart card chip.

Contactless technology is typically used for:

• Quick-pay cards
• Physical access
• Transit tickets (bus and subway fares)
• Identification

Magnetic Stripe Resources:

• Contactless News
• Smart Card Alliance