The Open Security Standards Association (OSS) recently announced the launch of its new offline access control standard. The OSS, established by ASSA ABLOY and other industry leaders, is a forum working towards new open standards in electronic access control. Its new interoperability standard for “Data on card” offline access control systems will be known as the OSS Standard Offline.
The new standard is designed to give confidence to customers faced with a rapidly developing and diverse market for electronic access control products. Standards also act as a mark of product safety and can boost industry R&D efforts.
Offline locks are not connected by a cable to an access control system, but work autonomously. Access rights are read from a compatible smartcard written by the system, which instructs an opening to lock or unlock accordingly.
For offline access control each manufacturer has its own approach to writing and reading smartcards, but customers installing components that meet the OSS Standard Offline are guaranteed interoperability. All locks that conform to the OSS Standard Offline—including ASSA ABLOY’s battery-powered Aperio^® Offline cylinders and escutcheons—read the same access rights from a card and interpret them in the same way. Customers are free to choose the best OSS-compliant offline lock on the market for the job.
“We were formerly using the SOAA standard, but decided together with Nedap, primion, dorma+Kaba Group, Deister, ACS and other leaders to found the OSS Association and use our combined industry leadership position to drive open standards such as the OSS Standard Offline,” says Matthias Weiß, Aperio^® Product Manager at ASSA ABLOY EMEA.
“We are also looking forward to working with colleagues in the OSS Association to take industry open standards beyond offline components, and into more areas of this exciting, fast-growing market,” adds Matthias Weiß.