Physical ID badges are a common part of daily life. From needing them to access services and buildings on a university campus to entering your typical corporate office building, a simple ID badge you wear on your person or carry with you on a keychain has been an indispensable part of physical security.
Now, security experts are saying the ID badge might be a thing of the past.
In a new interview with Security Magazine’s Madeline Lauver, Jesse Franklin, senior vice president U.S. & Canada at Incode, theorizes that physical ID badges will most likely be out of favor in the next 10 years.
Franklin points to the fact that forms of digital authentication have risen in accepted common security practice in recent years — something accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic as a result of the push toward contactless interactions.
“In a recent third-party survey conducted among 1,000 respondents, an increasingly large number of [users] agree that they would commit to a fully digital lifestyle where they could use digital authentication for all daily processes,” Franklin told the magazine.
That does come with some reservations. Cybersecurity concerns over private information always surround conversations around a push toward digitization of traditionally physical security protocols like ID badges.
That being said Franklin emphasized that recent research reveals digital authentication might make for more secure practices rather than a physical ID badge.
“By 2030, I predict that physical forms of identification will be obsolete with all, if not most, businesses having some form of digital authentication in place,” Franklin added.
This shift won’t happen overnight.
Given how embedded our reliance on physical forms of identification is in our society, it will take a while for businesses to begin to phase out these tried and true measures of ID and move to their digital counterparts.
Franklin laid out an approach for what needs to be done by firms as they look to the next 10 years of how they want to handle identification.
"First, they need to fully analyze their organization’s security posture and vulnerabilities in order to activate a successful authentication system,” Franklin stressed. “They then must activate a secure database, regularly updating their records of those barred from building access who may pose using false credentials. Digital authentication technology will continue to advance and will soon become the standard for all physical security settings."