Contactless access control systems have become the need of the hour on account of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Several traditional electronic access control systems involving digital keypads, fingerprint scanners and physical card readers have become a major area of concern in restricting the spread of the coronavirus. In addition, other touchless technologies such as facial recognition, voice recognition and iris scan have been ineffective, as a personnel are required to wear facemasks. Thereby, there has been an unprecedented need for the overall access control industry to pivot to contactless credentialing methods.
Several technologies such as smartphone credentialing applications, non-touch biometrics, and contactless fobs, among others have offered a viable solution for organizations to incorporate contactless access control methods to their existing infrastructure. Moreover, one of the major reason driving quick adoption of contactless methods is that organizations do not need to replace any high-cost components of their physical security infrastructure such as electronic locks, doors, turnstiles, security cameras, data servers and IT networks. Such contactless access control systems only replace the traditional digital keypads, card readers and fingerprint scanners and the rest of the system works in the similar manner as the traditional systems.
Leading companies operating in the electronic access control systems have been working towards integrating such contactless credentialing methods in order leverage their existing ecosystem and market hold. In addition, the industry has witnessed a rise of a large number of start-ups aimed towards design and development of innovative facial recognition software that are equally effective despite individuals wearing masks. Moreover, companies have also developed various smartphone applications that generate unique QR codes that can be scanned to authenticate user and record an entry. Thereby, the overall contactless access control systems market is poised to grow significantly in the following years due to the availability of a wide variety of product offerings and need for public health safety. Some of the key players in the market include NEC Corporation, HID Global Corporation, Fujitsu Limited, Thales Group SA, Aware, Inc., IDEMIA Group, Touchless Biometric Systems AG, Identiv, Inc., PERCo Company and Kisi Inc.
Trends and Future Outlook:
- Traditional companies in the electronic access control systems seeking to partner with start-ups to leverage their innovation
- Small and medium enterprises are expected to drive the demand for smartphone-based credentialing systems
- Rising investment towards facial recognition to develop advanced algorithms identifying user despite wearing masks
