Mobile devices are everywhere. The number of mobile phone users alone was forecast to reach over 4.7 billion this year, with more than 60 per cent of the world’s population already owning one. Around two out of every three business people today are using mobile devices such as smartphones for an ever more diverse set of applications.


One application that we’re seeing growth in is for mobile-enabled workforces to use smartphones and mobile devices as keys to gain access to secured buildings, rooms and areas.

According to a report from Gartner, ‘Predicts 2017: Identity and Access Management’, around 20 per cent of organisations expect to adapt use of smartphones as an option to traditional physical access cards by 2020. In 2016, just 5 per cent of organisations used smartphones to enable access.


One reason for the high expected growth for the usage of smartphones as digital access control keys is that mobile technology is already widely used for identification, authentication, authorisation and accountability in computer information systems. Another reason is that using mobile devices as keys aligns perfectly with the mobile-first preferences of today’s workforces.