Today, there are many different ways to handle physical access control. RFID cards and tags are still a major solution but during the last years the market have been focusing on taking advantage of the devices that most people always carry with them, such as smartphones, tablets or smartwatches. This thesis has been carried out together with the company BRP Systems. They develop and deliver business systems to mainly the fitness business. In their product suite there is an application for booking workout sessions at these facilities. In this thesis their booking application has been rebuilt as a prototype and the functionality of unlocking the door and checking into workout sessions has been added. The application has been developed in React Native for Android and has been implemented in three versions using different techniques to sensor the users position at the door. The techniques are iBeacon, GPS and QR code. The iBeacon- and GPS versions work by allowing the user to unlock the door when standing outside it. A local notification will be pushed if the application is in the background. The QR code version allows the user to scan a QR code at the door to unlock it. When the door has been unlocked the users can also check into their booked workout sessions. The system and the different versions have been tested at one of BRP Systems customers to evaluate the usability. The conclusion is that an application with high usability can be built with all tested techniques in React Native. For the system to be used several other factors such as security and maintenance has to be considered. The choice to use React Native might be of high risk since it is a relatively new framework relying on community developed libraries.

Physical access control systems (PACS) deal with the security of the availability of resources. They work as an alternative to traditional manual security access control. Access control has two variants, the logical which deals with computer environments and the physical which deals with the physical entry into a property or warehouses. However, offline physical access control systems cannot enforce the user’s path making it unsuitable for use in classified areas, such as places where the public is restricted. Therefore, offline PACS need a framework that can delegate the authority to enforce the user’s path. This is satisfactorily met in the presented research with a new design of offline PACS that has the capability to implement delegation. This framework allows the locks to dynamically write and read access policies onto and from a smart card. It works by means of a construct called “Path Array” and communication among different entities occurs via a chain of trust formed with the use of pre-shared keys.

Submitted by Daniele Santos (danielesantos.htl@gmail.com) on 2017-02-21T21:04:19Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Eduardo.pdf: 1544695 bytes, checksum: ad700b85bc86a6f4889a9f52275ab887 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Janete de Oliveira Feitosa (janete.feitosa@fgv.br) on 2017-02-23T17:38:59Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Eduardo.pdf: 1544695 bytes, checksum: ad700b85bc86a6f4889a9f52275ab887 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-03-02T13:43:19Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Eduardo.pdf: 1544695 bytes, checksum: ad700b85bc86a6f4889a9f52275ab887 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-11-10 / Today there exist a myriad of different types of physical access control systems (PACS) that use a smart card or mobile device as a key. The mobile device enabled smart locks, as they are often referred to, operate using either Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. This thesis has explored the use of a third emerging wireless technology called Near Field Communication (NFC) available in mobile devices such as smartphones. Near Field Communication (NFC) technology is a relatively new technology that is on the rise and is included in almost every new mobile device. By leveraging Near Field Communication (NFC) enabled mobile devices, a highly secure access control system can be achieved and developed taking advantage of the computational power of smartphones in comparison to traditional methods the business implications are huge, Several different authentication and encryption protocols, mobile operating systems and Near Field Communication (NFC) modes of operation where analyzed and evaluated. After considerations technical considerations the Secure Remote Password authentication protocol on top of Near Field Communication (NFC) card emulation (CE) scheme with the client application running on smartphones operating system (OS) was selected. This thesis shows that Near Field Communication (NFC) enables a mobile device to act as a key in a secure access control system (PACS) and as the user base for NFC grows larger so will the likelihood that we will come to see more of these types of systems in business and organizations.

In the domain of access control, the notion of zone is still ambiguous. The zone demands clearer contextualization that resonates with the security operators in their workplace. Through interpretive research, this project aims to investigate intuitive ways to monitor the overview of security through visualisation and propose a groundwork that can facilitate discussion around future possibilities of zones in physical access control. Based on the sense making process, this project presents three visualisation models: textual, physical, and abstract. Each model explores various representations of zones to communicate zone-to-zone relationships to improve usability. Also, the design work demonstrates diverse expressive qualities interacting with spaces that are physical, conceptual, and logical. In the most practical sense, the zone means groups of doors, however, the zone also embodies an abstract layer of interpretation that is not strictly connected to a physical space.