The Physical Security Interoperability Alliance (PSIA) hosted a well-attended cocktail reception and live demonstration during ISC West 2025 to unveil its latest advancement: the PKOC 3.0 specification, an exciting solution for secure, open credentialing in physical access control systems.
Jason Ouellette, Chairman of the PSIA and Corporate VP of Innovation and Technical Partnerships at ELATEC, led the presentation. He shared an overview of PKOC’s progress, key developments in the 3.0 release, and demonstrated a range of interoperable devices—including readers, cards, and mobile applications, built on the freely available, non-proprietary PKOC specification.
Broad industry collaboration
This year’s demonstration highlighted broad industry collaboration, with support and technologies provided by PSIA member companies including: ELATEC, EMSI, INID Readers USA, Johnson Controls, Kastle Systems, Last Lock, rf IDEAS, Sentry Enterprises, Taglio, and Universal Smart Card.
There is a growing list of manufacturers actively supporting the PKOC specification, but these 10 companies showcased products at the event, highlighting its interoperability and real-world applications.
Deloitte’s own proof-of-concept
The project features PKOC certificates working seamlessly across readers, physical cards, and mobile devices
At the reception, Jeff Longo, Director of Software Development at Kastle Systems, announced that the company will officially make the PKOC card its standard card offering—further solidifying its commitment to open, secure, and interoperable access control solutions.
Keith Kelly, Chief Security Officer at Deloitte Canada, shared insights from Deloitte’s own proof-of-concept implementation of PKOC at its Toronto office. The project features PKOC credentials functioning seamlessly across readers, physical cards, and mobile devices. Kelly emphasised that PKOC represents “a new generation of access control,” aligned with Deloitte’s priorities around open, flexible, and secure credentialing.
Simplicity, security, and scalability
David Bunzel, Executive Director of the PSIA, noted, “PKOC is widely recognised as one of the most exciting solutions for secure credentials. Because it is based on an open specification, it is cost-effective—but just as important, it is secure and highly flexible.”
Unlike many legacy credential technologies, PKOC is completely open source, with no fees, royalties, or membership requirements. Its simplicity, security, and scalability are fuelling growing interest across integrators, manufacturers, and enterprise users.
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