2 Jan 2012

The Security Industry Association (SIA) is pleased to announce the Open Supervised Device Protocol (OSDP) with Data Security Extension as a new Standards Department project within the organisation's American National Standards Institute (ANSI) accredited standards programme.

OSDP was originally developed by HID Global and Mercury Security Corporation (with some recent contribution from Codebench, Inc.) as a communication protocol for interfacing peripheral devices, like card readers, to control panels or other security management systems. The SIA version will support both IP communications and point-to-point serial interfaces such as RS-485. The serial version of the protocol has been fully adopted by numerous manufacturers and others are in the development stages of implementation.

"We think that there is a glaring need for this type of specification within the industry," said SIA Standards Chairman Steve Van Till.  "There is currently no standard protocol for interfacing readers to physical access control systems, other than the outdated Wiegand protocol, which does not support advanced operations such as those required for PKI."

Van Till said SIA plans to review the current version of OSDP through its normal committee process, which includes a public comment period. In addition to the review of the serial version, SIA will work toward extending the protocol for IP transport to ensure that the implementation needs of the majority of the industry are met. SIA Standards have been referenced in the Federal Identity Credentialing and Access Management (FICAM) roadmap, and the subcommittee review of the OSDP standard will also include a discussion of how it fits within the ICAM architecture.

"We feel that SIA Standards is the perfect home for this important access control specification," said Dave Adams, senior product marketing manager at HID Global. "We are excited that OSDP will be evaluated by the industry and anticipate that it will create great technical efficiencies in enabling secure and trusted identity verification."

The SIA Standards Access Control and Identity Subcommittee, which will review the OSDP Standard, is open to all interested stakeholders within the industry and there is no charge for participation.