This Week with ACDI: Authentication and Access Control

By Anthony Seiler, ACDI: The sun is poking through in different places across the US, which can only mean one thing: we are on the cusp of education season. Let’s take a look at campus life for students and faculty. Internal campus management of the student body, faculty, and adjunct professors constantly evolve. In today’s Higher Education market, students’ needs drive most technological enhancements. If we anticipate needs, we must consider what’s happening on campus; movement and mobility. Think about it. Students do everything on their phones. They buy products, scroll their Twitter feed, Venmo cash, buy Crypto, and even participate in classes. There’s not much that the minicomputer in your pocket doesn’t handle, which means pressure for IT to accommodate students’ needs is evolving at a pretty rapid pace. We think ACDI and Elatec can help make this evolution as seamless as possible.

Elatec’s latest authentication readers use ATV technology (Apple VAS Transact) to enhance any transaction on campus. It’s not just about secure printing but tying every campus transaction using mobile credentials into one centralized technology. Think of your PAW Pass, OneCard, SmartCard, and hundreds more. Now take those credentials and add them to your Google Wallet, Apple Wallet, Apple Watch, or SmartWatch. Voilà!! Now via Near-Field Communication (NFC), you hold mobile credentials to any access point campus-wide. That’s libraries, fitness centers, food trucks, parking, bookstores, and many more. And think about the IT relief this enables from having everyone managed via a single source. You can easily see why campuses are moving in this direction.