Nedap has recently co-founded the Open Security Standard (OSS) Association. The OSS Association is focused on developing open security standards and also includes European industry leaders ACS, Assa Abloy, Datasec, Deister, dorma+kaba group, primion, Uhlmann & Zacher and Zugang GmbH.

The OSS’s first focus is to develop a standard for offline locks, called the OSS Standard Offline. It is an open interoperability standard for ‘Data on Card’ offline access control systems. The purpose of the Standard Offline is to ensure that customers can seamlessly combine the online and offline components of their own choice in one integrated access control solution.

There are many different offline electronic locks available on the market. Offline locks are not connected by a cable to an access control system, but work autonomously, powered on a battery. Access rights are read from a compatible card, written by an access control system, such as Nedap’s system AEOS, which instructs a lock to be unlocked or locked accordingly.

Until recently, each offline lock and access control manufacturer had its own approach to reading and writing cards. With the OSS Standard Offline, locks from different manufacturers read and interpret the access rights from a card in a uniformed way. Customers installing offline locks into access control systems with OSS Standard Offline compatibility are guaranteed interoperability.

Assa Abloy, Nedap and Zugang GmbH were formerly members of the SOAA e.g, also a standard for offline locks. They joined themselves into the Open Security Standard Association to achieve a more powerful and professional cooperation. The OSS Standard Offline is completely compatible with the SOAA Standard.