Cloud Technology - Better With a Higher Degree of Cyber Security

A growing number of businesses are using the latest technologies to enhance security. Issuing identification cards can be challenging and costly for today’s organizations but it doesn’t have to be. HID’s cloud-based card issuance platform, HID FARGO Connect™, simplifies the complex, reduces costs and brings together all the elements of a secure card issuance program into a centralized and integrated system. And hence, has adopted cloud-based card printers, and encoders to generate ID cards at scale and at higher speeds. By using cloud-based solutions, customers can easily combine hardware, software, and services to efficiently generate a high volume of data at a high speed. When using a secure cloud printer, or encoder, a user can bring all card issuer needs under a single integrated platform by centralising the operation of distributed issuance. System administrators have greater control and oversight of all activity. For example, users can issue cards at different offices across India or Asia, or even globally. The user will have a dashboard that is centralised and able to monitor all the issues.

Audit Control for Better Security
While increasing audit control speed and security, there are many concerns such as - “Where is your regional office?”; “Where is your remote office?”; “What are they doing?”. With the data collected supported by a dashboard and software, one can monitor every production step and answer queries such as “How many cards are needed”, “What card and who they issue to”, and so on.

A recent success story for HID was an IT company headquartered in the United States that needed to remotely issue employee IDs in India. Using our technology, the headquarters can seamlessly and securely issue cards and have a real-time view into how many cards are issued and who they are issuing them to without compromising their data - not just in their India office but also in Malaysia or Australia.

In the past, when anyone wanted to monitor all this information, the data would be issued from the company’s headquarters. It would then take a month or more to share the employee identification with their remote staff. Now with cloud solutions, one can easily issue employee identification instantly to their team anywhere in the world. All the data managed by the headquarters are securely monitored to protect the same, so there is no risk of a data breach. This has created great convenience for users and customers while maintaining high security.

Market Race
Many companies provide enhanced cloud solutions, but they would still need a local computer to issue identification cards. With HID, customers, and partners can print identification cards from the remote site. Everything is managed from the headquarter with one control console for each of the remote sites. If a user needs to remotely manage 15 new branches, they do not need to have 15 new computers but 15 consoles. There is no need for a new operator to take care of the identification card issuance. One just needs to find a printer and plug it into the network. The card will be issued from the headquarter with a local operator collecting it from the printer terminal. This minimizes the chance of unauthorised issuance through the local computer terminal and eliminates the installation and maintenance of card issuance software and printer drivers. Our solution allows the user to have end-to-end visibility, efficiency and security of the entire card issuance process — all while reducing complexity.

At HID, our marketing and sales team speaks regularly to users to understand their needs, so that we are able to provide solutions that meet their specific needs and solve the challenges they face.

Recent Market Triggers and Opportunities
Over the past two and a half years, we have seen how the pandemic has changed over lives and one key area has been the reduction of physical contact. This has been the biggest catalyst to expedite the adoption of digital technology. But with digital adoption comes the question and concern over data security.

As the ecosystem evolves and more companies adopt newer technology, there is a strong need for dynamic security solutions. We must ensure that these solutions are convenient, user-friendly, and most importantly secure. Even though HID operates on cloud solutions, it is just a gateway. We do not retain any of the end-user data or our partner customer data. It is a solution for customers to issue identification cards at their convenience; data is transferred over the cloud in a highly encrypted manner. HID cloud issuance solution, HID Fargo Connect complies with HIPAA and FERPA data privacy requirements through end-to-end encryption.

In the coming months, we expect demand for Issuance technology across all industries, especially in government verticals needing to issue identification to the citizen – whether it is national identification or a driver's license, a social security card, etc. Other than demand from the government, we expect a spike in demand among financial institutions needing trusted solutions that they can implement while issuing credit cards, debit cards, gift cards, and insurance cards.