Most of us only notice access when it gets in the way. A badge is forgotten. A hotel key stops working. A queue forms at a turnstile. Then come reception desks, temporary passes, repeated data entry and another round of proving who we are.
At LEGIC Connect 26 in Zurich, LEGIC CEO Mehdi Elhaoussine set out a much bigger vision for the category. One idea kept surfacing in very different forms. Access control is outgrowing the door. For an industry built around keys, cards, locks and readers, the opportunity is becoming much bigger. Trusted identity is emerging as connective infrastructure across our physical and digital lives.
The mobile phone is becoming the keyring.
Apple’s Stephan Bosshart showed how Apple Wallet has moved far beyond payments into tickets, car keys, hotel rooms, universities and workplace access. Adrian Kamm of UBS then showed what that looks like at enterprise scale, with a “street-to-seat” journey connecting building entry, desk booking and workplace services.
The significance is not the phone itself. It is the expectation it creates. People increasingly want access to work with the same immediacy and familiarity as paying, travelling or boarding a flight. Fewer cards. Fewer queues. Fewer interruptions.
Identity is becoming the new perimeter.
Security was once organised around the boundary of a building, network or system. Now the same identity moves across all three. One person may enter a building, log into a network, release a document, book a room and access a device.
The shift is from protecting individual places to establishing trust around an identity wherever it appears. The issue is no longer only whether a credential opens one door. It is whether the underlying identity can be trusted in different contexts, with the right permission at the right moment.
Access decisions are getting smarter.
Sarah Rodrigues of Acre Security explored how access systems are beginning to combine information from readers, cameras, sensors and visitor systems to understand more about the context surrounding an access event.
AI can help turn those signals into useful intelligence rather than simply presenting more data to a person. Over time, systems can be authorised to respond automatically to defined conditions. An unusual request might trigger an additional identity check, while conflicting risk signals might restrict access or escalate a decision to a human.
Robots need badges too.
One of the most memorable demonstrations came from ANYbotics. Jacob Euler-Rolle showed autonomous inspection robots operating around the clock in industrial sites, taking on repetitive and hazardous inspection work.
Working with LEGIC and dormakaba, ANYbotics has given these robots secure digital identities and defined access rights so they can move through controlled environments using existing access infrastructure. This allows autonomous machines to work safely alongside human teams, increase inspection coverage and keep people away from potentially dangerous environments.
The best experience hides the complexity.
Consumers increasingly expect access to feel like paying with a phone. Immediate. Intuitive. Barely noticed.
Making the surface simpler, however, requires more sophistication underneath. Stronger identity proofing, biometrics, device security, revocable credentials and better cryptography working together. Convenience and security do not have to pull in opposite directions. The goal is stronger security that creates less friction.
Standardised interoperability is becoming essential.
The importance of interoperability ran throughout LEGIC Connect, including discussion between organisations spanning the credential ecosystem such as LEGIC, HID, NXP Semiconductors, The LEAF Community and the Connectivity Standards Alliance.
No single company owns the whole journey. Wallet providers, credential platforms, hardware manufacturers, enterprise systems and identity services must work together.
Customer demand, ecosystem complexity and regulation are increasing the pressure for systems that can connect safely across providers. Open standards and interoperable frameworks give organisations greater freedom of choice while helping them retain control of credentials, security and data. Standardisation is therefore less about making everything the same and more about making everything work together reliably.
Future-proofing starts now.
Teresa Wu of IDEMIA Public Security brought another emerging challenge into sharp focus. Preparing access infrastructure for the post-quantum era needs to start well before sufficiently powerful quantum computers arrive.
The arrival date of a cryptographically relevant quantum computer remains uncertain. Predictions vary widely, with some estimates placing it within the next decade. The more immediate issue is the time required to prepare, because the risk starts before a powerful quantum computer exists. Encrypted information can be collected now and potentially decrypted later once the technology becomes capable enough. That makes crypto agility increasingly important, giving organisations the ability to update security without replacing entire systems.
That urgency is echoed by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology, or NIST, the federal agency responsible for developing technology and cybersecurity standards that are widely adopted by government and industry. NIST has already published post-quantum cryptography standards and is encouraging organisations to begin migrating to them now.
All this changes the brand story.
As the technology becomes more sophisticated, the role of brand is not to make that complexity louder. It is to make its meaning clearer.
Clarity creates salience. The strongest brands in this space will translate invisible infrastructure into outcomes people immediately understand. A smoother arrival at work. A hotel room that simply opens. A safer industrial inspection. A vehicle, building or service that recognises the right person at the right moment. Familiar human moments make complex technology easier to understand and easier to remember.
Purpose also needs to move beyond the language of control. Access is increasingly about enabling trusted movement, helping people, organisations and machines go where they need to go safely and with less friction. That creates a more human and expansive story than locks, readers and credentials alone.
Brand experience then must prove the promise. A brand that talks about seamless access cannot deliver fragmented onboarding, confusing interfaces or disconnected service. Visual identity, user experience, product language, customer support and campaign communications all become part of the same trust experience.
Differentiation matters more as technical standards converge. When interoperability raises the baseline and functional capabilities become easier to match, distinction shifts towards the role a brand owns, the idea it stands for, the personality it brings and the experience it creates. Features can be copied. A clear and credible place in people’s minds is much harder to replicate.
Access technology is becoming more intelligent, connected and secure. The brands that lead the change will not make people think harder about access. They will make its value easier to understand.
More intelligence underneath. Less friction on the surface. More control for organisations. Less effort for people.