Everyone who has ever stayed at a hotel knows about electronic keycard technology. Unlike traditional metal keys, plastic keycards embedded with a magnetic stripe allow visitors to swipe the card to open their hotel door. This technology revolutionized the hotel industry. The first keycard technology was utilized by Tor Sornes, an inventor from VingCard, who created the world's first mechanical recordable lock. The Westin Peachtree Plaza in Atlanta Georgia became the first hotel to use this technology in 1979.

Today over 83 percent of hotels across the United States use keycards, according to the American Hotel and Lodging Association. The cards gained popularity not only within the hotel industry but other fields as well, such as grocery stores and gas stations, leading the way to even more advanced methods of protection and services.

Smart Cards

Unlike traditional keycards with their magnetic stripe, a smart card contains a tiny microprocessor embedded inside the card. Various encryption techniques are used between the smart card and the smart card reader to ensure that the information contained in the card is not lost, stolen or tampered with by hackers. Current uses for smart cards include using them for secure banking, credit cards, and government identification and computer security systems.

RFID

In recent years radio frequency identification (RFID) has gained popularity, appearing in everything from the retail and service industry to manufacturing and homeland security systems. Like the magnetic swipe cards before them, RFID works by using both a tag and a reader.

The RFID tag contains a radio transmitter and receiver that send a specific radio frequency to the reader. RFID systems are used not only to open doors but also to track goods and people, from tollbooth services like EZ Tag to ensure that people pay the proper toll to airport ticket scanners to ensure you are boarding the proper plane.

From magnetic swipe keycards to smart cards and RFID, security and sales technology has greatly expanded the way that people protect and conduct day to day business operations.