HID Global has announced the successful completion of the world’s first university pilot of NFC smart phones carrying digital keys.

First announced in September, the pilot involved a select group of students and staff at Arizona State University using NFC-enabled smart phones equipped with HID’s Secure Identity Object (SIO) Technology. Participants could gain access to their residence halls and other secure access areas by tapping their handset against a reader embedded in the door and entering a PIN, rather than use their plastic campus card.

Identity protection provider Yubico reported a successful 2011, with increased customer growth and revenue across geographical regions.

Yubico increased its customer base by 90% to 18,000 and won new clients, including government contractors, e-governments and cloud service providers. By the end of 2011, it had more than one million users in 100 countries. Additionally, customer and revenue growth increased across Yubico’s geographical segments, with 50% of its revenue now coming from the U.S.