RIM is really hitting the first with NFC. They led the way with being the first approved for Visa mobile payment and then MasterCard and now they have finally come through with another solution. They are on HID’s first approved list for physical access badge replacements. You are probably familiar with HID since they power most building access badges. As of last week HID Global has their Secure Identity Services that provides web based provisioning and management for badges with support starting with Verizon’s BlackBerry Bold 9930 and Curve 9370.
Here is how RIM describes this system working in their latest blog post:
I asked our NFC product team this very question as soon as I heard the news. Access credentials are stored on an embedded secure element within a BlackBerry smartphone – and an HID Global app installed on the devices is able to call up this information and then utilize BlackBerry Trusted Service Manager to create a VPN connection to HID’s servers, allowing for remote management of this secure area and the credentials within.
A physical badge represents an additional set of credentials for your business to manage. When you integrate this with a BlackBerry smartphone, you bring it into the fold of device management that is already underway with BlackBerry® Enterprise Server. It’s an extension of your management and security capabilities to include these access credentials.
I am hoping RIM hits NFC even harder with BlackBerry 10. They now have this partnership with HID but hopefully it will work with all BlackBerry 10 devices at launch.
