University of Sydney adopts mobile credentials for campus access

Gallagher Security and Transact Campus have partnered to enhance the student experience at the University of Sydney. The collaboration aims to streamline and simplify campus life for students and staff through the use of innovative mobile credential and payment solutions.

For over 25 years, the University of Sydney has been a customer of Gallagher Security. Recently, the university sought new ways to improve life on campus. This partnership allows students and staff to opt into using their smartphones or Apple Watches for various campus activities such as accessing buildings and doors in libraries, borrowing library materials, printing, scanning, and photocopying, and accessing other campus services.

The University of Sydney is the first university in New South Wales to adopt this technology. The integration of Transact Mobile Credential with Gallagher’s Command Centre enables university students and staff to gain fast and secure access to campus areas by tapping their smartphones or Apple Watches at a Gallagher reader. The technology employs highly secure near field communication (NFC), compatible with both iOS and Android devices.

This system not only allows for contactless entry to buildings but also offers contactless micropayments for various campus services, including printing, scanning, copying, and even laundry payments in student residences, all managed from a smartphone or Apple Watch if the features are enabled.

Sandie Matthews, Chief Information Officer at the University of Sydney, expressed enthusiasm about the new digital IDs: "We’re delighted to offer our students and staff a highly secure, convenient, and familiar digital University of Sydney ID card. Students have told us that their plastic student ID card is one of the few remaining they need to carry around. They use digital bank cards, boarding passes, and concert tickets on their phones. This secure technology innovation for digital IDs helps deliver one of our key University strategies to have a better place to work, and a place that works better.”

Adam Smith, Sales Manager for New South Wales at Gallagher Security, added: “It was rewarding to work with the University of Sydney to understand their needs and to develop and deliver a software and hardware digital credential solution, improving the experience for students and staff on campus.”

Rasheed Behrooznia, senior vice president and general manager of Campus ID solutions at Transact, also commented on the collaboration: "This collaboration between Transact and Gallagher emphasises our collective commitment to improving the university student experience.”

This partnership marks a significant step for technological integration aimed at enhancing convenience and security for the university's community.