Smart badging uses smart card technologies for those applications where employee badges are required. Employee badges often identify an employee with a photograph and their employee number and are used to enter a building or a secured part of a building.

Using smart cards and card readers for physical access allows a company to control access to physical resources with the same tools and materials that they use to control logical access to computers and information. Smart cards typically have enough memory to hold several kinds of credentials, like PKI certificates and passwords, all bound to one identity. This also simplifies audit of access as a person moves through secured areas and gains access to information.

This approach will be required for government employees and contractors because of Homeland Security Presidential Directive – Number 12 (HSPD-12) and the resulting Personal Identity Verification (PIV) program in process at NIST.