Multicard was awarded the contract by the County Sheriffs of Colorado Association, an organization that advocates for the Office of the Sheriff across the state. “Carrying a concealed weapon” (CCW) permits are issued through the local sheriff’s office in each of Colorado’s 64 counties. While the application process is the same statewide, prior to this project there was no unified standard for the permit’s design or production. Steve Benitez, Vice President of Sales for Multicard explained, “Without a state standard, it was difficult for law enforcement to verify a valid permit if issued from other counties. This also left room for forgery and fraud. Our goal was to develop and implement a secure statewide standard for the permit so that all sheriffs’ offices will be issuing the same document. The permit design needed to address previously established requirements including the permit holder’s photograph and other identifying information, as well as the signature of the sheriff issuing the permit.”

The county sheriffs’ organization contracted with Multicard to develop the permit design, securely produce the pre-printed card templates, and consult on implementation. A design template incorporating all required information and additional security features was created and pre-printed on standard CR80 size PVC card stock, which is similar to a credit card in size and thickness. The pre-printed card stock was then distributed to the counties for issuance. Additionally Multicard is supplying the fully compatible ID systems needed to print the final permit, which include a configured production software module and printer. 

“The CCW permit project was an important initiative and Multicard has fulfilled our expectations for a standard, easily recognizable credential statewide. We are very pleased with the results and with the speed and professionalism of Multicard’s service in designing and implementing this solution for the State of Colorado. Tamper-proof security features make it virtually impossible to recreate the permit and law enforcement can be assured that a CCW permit is state-approved and legal,” said Gary Cure, Assistant Director, County Sheriffs of Colorado.

“Citizens had long outgrown its legacy system which was in disrepair,” says Don Crawford, Citizens Corporate Facility Manager.  “Hirsch Identive’s Velocity was selected primarily for its scalability, interoperability and reliability.”  Velocity delivers a broad range of security management features bundled into a single package.  In addition, it allows seamless integration of access control, intrusion detection, alarm monitoring, credential enrollment, photo badging, video surveillance and database management.  The system installation is straightforward and includes user-friendly tutorials. 

Crawford explains, “We found Hirsch Identive’s Velocity tutorials to be a great feature to move our small project team up the learning curve quickly.  Due to an inaccessible legacy system database, the new system had to be built from the ground up.  Considerable effort was required to maintain an aggressive installation schedule, but in the end the transition of the new system was virtually seamless and appeared to be almost effortless.”  

To provide a complete solution for Citizens, Hirsch Identive teamed with its local integration partner, Viking Security of Kissimmee, Florida, which specializes in multi-location, enterprise-wide project installations.  This implementation is the result of a two-year project in which Citizens and Viking Security visited multiple current Hirsch Identive customer locations and Hirsch Identive staged product demonstrations and development meetings at Citizens’ sites, providing Crawford and his team the confidence to move forward with the project.   

Citizens Property Insurance is a not-for-profit, tax-exempt government corporation whose public purpose is to provide insurance protection to Florida property owners throughout the state. The corporation insures hundreds of thousands of homes, businesses and condominiums whose owners otherwise might not be able to find coverage.

“To enhance security of personnel and assets within their facilities, government agencies and businesses of all sizes are working to integrate their physical and IT network access systems using open standard platforms, so that a single identity credential can be used for employees across the entire enterprise, from door to network,” explained John Menzel, vice president Access Control ID Solutions for Identive. “In order to bridge logical and physical systems with a single identity, door readers need to combine support for proprietary legacy systems with secure and open IT network communication capabilities. This principle is the basis for the new TouchSecure reader family.”  

As one of the world’s first physical access readers capable of reading a multitude of access card formats, the TouchSecure OpenAccess supports the convergence of physical and logical access systems around the use of a single trusted identity credential. When installed at a facility’s entrance points, the reader becomes a secure open platform to unify and enhance building security within a single site or across different sites using different card systems. The reader also offers complete scalability from local to cloud-based management and reporting.

“Physical access systems are notoriously difficult to upgrade because they are deeply embedded within buildings,” noted Mark Diodati, research vice president at Gartner. “An intelligent reader can provide stronger authentication, mobile device support, and simpler IT convergence without a potential multi-year upgrade of the entire physical access system.”

TouchSecure OpenAccess provides this intelligence. For companies that wish to upgrade their access control systems from older proprietary systems to newer technologies that offer higher security and more flexibility, the reader provides a migration path that allows a gradual swap-out of employee credentials over time, without the need to rip out and replace existing controllers, wiring or access readers.

“TouchSecure readers are ideally suited for organizations implementing card technology migration or support for multiple types of credentials, as well as those just seeking a reader with maximum performance and security options for the future,” stated Dr. Manfred Mueller, Executive Vice President of Identive and Managing Director of the Company’s ID Infrastructure division. “An open architecture design enables broad applicability for small/medium enterprises of 100 employees all the way up to the largest corporations that maintain multiple campuses spanning the globe. Compliance with the industry’s most stringent security standards ensures the reader’s suitability for use in high-security government facilities, as mandated under federal directives. TouchSecure OpenAccess is truly designed for the 21st century, able to take you from your current door reader technology to wherever you want to migrate in the future.”

TouchSecure OpenAccess readers support multiple proximity and smart card formats, including proximity-125 kHz (all major building access formats), NXP MIFARE® Classic, DESFire®  EV1, ISO14443A/B CSN, PLAID, ISO 15693, NFC and U.S. government personal identification verification (PIV), including PIV-I. The TouchSecure OpenAccess reader is based on international standards including ISO14443A/B, ISO7816, FIPS201, FIPS140-2 and PLAID. With remote connectivity capabilities, firmware technology updates can add new compatibilities in the future, making the TouchSecure OpenAccess a long-term solution, available today.

In addition to traditional Wiegand and RS-485 communication to a controller, TouchSecure OpenAccess readers offer support for Ethernet and Wi-Fi, enabling remote management from the desktop and overall system management in the cloud. Configuration, firmware updates and diagnostics are easily accomplished with just a few clicks.

Identive’s TouchSecure OpenAccess readers are available now.

For more information, visit www.identive-infrastructure.com/touchsecure.

Mueller currently serves as Executive Vice-President and Managing Director of Identive’s ID Infrastructure division (formerly SCM Microsystems), which develops and sells contact, contactless and mobile smart card readers and terminals and development products. In his new role, Mueller will have responsibility both for ID Infrastructure and the Company’s Transponder product lines consisting of radio frequency identification (RFID) inlays and smart tags, as well as NFC tags, labels and cards.

“Manfred‘s leadership of our ID Infrastructure division over the past two years has resulted in the successful turnaround of this business, with innovative new product releases, strong sales growth in Asia/Pacific and Europe, improved margins and the division’s move towards profitability,” said Ayman S. Ashour, chairman and CEO of Identive. “Bringing our fast-growing Transponder business together with ID Infrastructure under Manfred’s leadership will allow us to leverage the global structure of our reader operations and to align our RFID and reader offerings to address common market opportunities, in particular NFC and converged physical and logical access.” 

As COO for Identification Products, Mueller will work to drive the sales growth of the Company’s NFC tags and readers, which enable the market’s increasing array of NFC-enabled phones to perform transactions, download information or launch applications. He will also oversee the Company’s recently announced initiatives to build on its strong base of network access and Software as a Service (SaaS) technologies to address the rapidly growing market for converged access products.

“RFID and reader technologies are at the very heart of electronic ID applications and Identive’s market-leading products provide our partners and OEMs with important building blocks for the identity ecosystem. I am excited to take on this next challenge in my career and look forward to further expanding Identive’s role in the identity markets,” said Mueller.

Over the past eleven years, Dr. Manfred Mueller has served in a variety of management roles at Identive, with a primary focus on sales, marketing and operations for the Company’s ID Infrastructure division. He holds a Master’s degree and a PhD in Chemistry from Regensburg University in Germany and an MBA from the Heriot Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland.