The University of Arizona is making significant strides in the realm of campus card data interpretation thanks to the work of university researcher, Sudha Ram. Ram’s Smart Campus research is tracking students’ social interactions and daily routines via CatCard usage — Arizona’s student ID — and leveraging that information to make predictions about freshman retention.

Brooklyn College students can now use electronic IDs at security checkpoints around its urban campus. The eIDs are seen as a way to improve the college’s security, and are being used in a visual-only verification capacity.

Viewed by some as the Holy Grail of issued identification for its flexibility, mobility, and interoperability across physical and logical applications, mobile credentials are making inroads across numerous verticals. But rather than acting as a competitive form factor to the traditional, physical card, mobile IDs securely provisioned onto mobile devices can most effectively function in harmony with cards as a natural supplement.

In today’s short podcast hear from Zack Walker of Vision Database Systems on why a solution like PockeTracker is such a good fit for campus environments and his thoughts on Madison Area Technical College’s advanced deployment of the system. Then, hear from Madison College’s Doug Gerbitz, who has overseen the PockeTracker deployment across the college’s system of campuses, about the ways in which mobile ID verification is being utilized.

A growing trend in verification is the use of mobile devices as a means to facilitate the scanning of IDs, and a growing number of campuses are taking notice. With this in mind, we partnered with Vision Database Systems to discuss the use of mobile devices for ID verification.

HID Global has revealed that its mobile access and advanced smart card offerings have been deployed by Guadalajara, Mexico’s Cervantes High School to help create a safer learning environment. The project has seen some 1,500 Seos smart cards and Mobile IDs issued to students, faculty, administrative personnel and service employees .

There’s perhaps no vertical that’s better suited for the jump to mobile ID than higher education. With a cardholder base consisting of tech-savvy students, adoption and use of a mobile credential could be seamless. But for those campuses not yet prepared to go whole hog with mobile ID, here’s the skinny on a combined card and mobile strategy that will make the transition to mobile ID a smooth one.

With the release of iOS 11, third-party developers will be able to work with the iPhone’s NFC chip for the first time. That’s good news and a step in the right direction for the identity and security industry, but unfortunately it doesn’t appear to deliver on the ultimate goal — the use of Apple’s handset as a security credential.