Access control sounds like a single product, but it's really a stack of decisions: how people prove who they are, where the decision is made, and what happens when something changes. Get the credential type wrong and you'll be replacing the hardware in three years. Get it right and the system disappears into the background — exactly what you want.
Here's how to think about the three main credential types, and the kinds of GTA properties each one tends to fit.
The three options
1. Keycards and fobs
The default for the last 25 years. The user carries a plastic card or a small fob; the reader on the door reads its radio frequency ID and checks whether that ID is on the allowed list. Modern systems use 13.56 MHz smart cards (iCLASS, MIFARE DESFire) that are much harder to clone than the old 125 kHz proximity cards.
2. Biometric readers
Fingerprint, facial recognition or palm-vein readers. The user's body is the credential. Nothing to carry, nothing to lose, nothing to lend. Quality has improved dramatically in the last five years — modern facial recognition readers from ZKTeco, HID, Suprema and others work reliably even in office lobby lighting.
3. Mobile credentials
The user's phone is the credential, transmitted to the reader over Bluetooth or NFC. Most users have their phone in hand anyway, so the user experience is excellent — walk up, the door unlocks. Cloud-managed systems like Avigilon Alta (Openpath), Brivo and Kisi pioneered this; HID Mobile Access and Paxton10 are mainstream options too.
How they compare on the things that actually matter
Convenience
Mobile credentials win hands-down. People always have their phone; they often forget cards and fobs. For office tenants, the difference shows up in support tickets — "I forgot my card" calls disappear when mobile credentials are deployed.
Biometric is a close second when it's tuned properly. Cards are the worst of the three for convenience because they have to be carried and remembered.
Security against cloning
Modern smart cards (iCLASS SE, DESFire EV3) and biometric readers are roughly equivalent — both very hard to fake at the credential level. Old 125 kHz prox cards (the white HID cards that have been around since the 1990s) can be cloned by anyone with a $30 device from Amazon. If your building still uses these, the credentials themselves are basically decorative.
Mobile credentials are the most secure of the three when implemented correctly — they use rolling cryptographic keys that are essentially uncloneable in practice.
Cost — credentials and replacement
- Cards / fobs: $5 – $15 per credential; reader costs $250 – $600 per door
- Biometric: no per-user credential cost; reader costs $400 – $1,500 per door depending on type
- Mobile: $1 – $5 per user per year (licence model), or sometimes free; reader costs $400 – $900 per door
For a small office with 20 users, all three are roughly comparable over five years. For a 500-person office with high turnover, mobile typically wins because you're not constantly buying and tracking new cards.
Speed of provisioning & deprovisioning
Mobile credentials win again. When someone is hired, the IT admin sends them an invitation email and they have access in minutes. When someone leaves, access is revoked from the dashboard the moment HR fires the trigger — no chasing them for the card on their way out.
Cards require physical handover, which is fine for slow turnover but expensive for high-churn environments. Biometric enrolment takes 30–60 seconds per user but is a one-time event, with similarly instant deprovisioning.
Reliability and edge cases
Cards work in any condition, any weather, every time. Biometric readers are now very reliable but can struggle with very dirty hands, gloves (worth checking if you have a workshop or food-prep environment), or hats and sunglasses (for facial recognition).
Mobile credentials need users with charged smartphones. Most modern systems support card or biometric as a backup so a dead phone doesn't lock anyone out — but that means you're effectively running two systems.
The right fit by property type
Small offices (5 – 30 staff)
Mobile credentials are now the easiest sell. The cloud dashboard means a small business doesn't need an IT team to manage access. Platforms like Paxton10 or Avigilon Alta are designed for this market.
Mid-size offices (30 – 200 staff)
Mixed mobile + card is the GTA standard right now. Most staff use mobile; a smaller pool of cards exists for visitors, contractors, and edge cases. Avoid pure-biometric for general access — it's overkill and creates friction.
Retail and restaurants
Hardened keycards or fobs, often with timed access (so cleaners can enter only between 5 and 7 a.m.). Mobile is harder in retail because employee turnover is high and many employees use shared devices. Biometric (fingerprint) works well for back-of-house if you have hand-hygiene considerations covered.
Multi-tenant residential / condos
Cards remain dominant because they need to work for everyone — including occupants without smartphones. The shift is toward smart-card systems with optional mobile credentials layered on top for those who prefer them.
Industrial / construction sites
Rugged cards and fobs win. Mobile credentials are unreliable on sites where phones can be in pockets full of dust or where workers wear heavy gloves. Biometric fingerprint readers exist for sites but need careful housing selection.
Higher-security spaces
Anywhere requiring 2-factor authentication (server rooms, controlled-substance storage, cash rooms) — combine biometric + card or biometric + PIN. The 2FA pattern is becoming standard for restricted areas under most security audits.
The decision most people get wrong
The single biggest mistake we see is picking the credential type before picking the management platform. The credential is the easy part — what really matters is whether your security manager can manage permissions, generate audit trails, integrate with HR, and handle visitor passes without spending hours per week on it.
Start with the question "who's going to administer this, and how often will the user list change?" Then choose a platform that matches. The credential type often falls out automatically.
A note on privacy in Ontario
Biometric access control collects personal information. Under Ontario's privacy frameworks and PIPEDA, employers using biometric access for staff need to provide clear notice, collect only what's necessary, and store biometric templates securely (usually as cryptographic hashes, not raw images). Most modern readers handle this properly out of the box, but it's worth confirming during procurement — and updating your employee handbook to mention it.
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