Plastic card, wallet pass, or both?
Every institution rethinking its ID programme asks this question, and most of the answers on offer come from someone selling one side of it. Here is the honest version: what a wallet pass actually is, where plastic still wins, and why — with one credential system — the choice mostly disappears.
What a wallet pass actually is
A wallet pass is a pass in Apple Wallet or Google Wallet that carries the same credential as the plastic card: the person's name, an identity derived from the same screened photograph, the same serial number, and a barcode or QR code that anyone can check against public verification. It is updated over the air when the record changes, and it can be revoked remotely — a revoked pass is visibly struck through on the phone, not quietly forgotten.
Now what it is not. A wallet pass does not open your existing door readers. Unless your access control system supports mobile NFC credentials, the pass will not unlock anything — and most campus doors today read a physical card technology, not a phone. If a vendor implies that moving to digital ID means your doors come along for free, ask them to demonstrate it on your readers. The pass identifies a person; it is the plastic card that opens the building you already own.
Where plastic still wins
- Door access on the readers you already have — the card is the key, and replacing readers is a capital project, not a card decision.
- Visual checks at a glance — a card on a lanyard can be read across a corridor without asking anyone to unlock a phone.
- Regulated environments where policy or a client contract requires a physical credential to be worn.
- People without smartphones — every population has some, and an ID programme that excludes them is not finished.
Where digital wins
- Issued in seconds, not print runs — no queue at a counter, no waiting on a courier.
- Cannot be left in a flat across town — the phone is the one thing people go back for.
- Revocation is instant and visible — the pass is struck through on the phone the moment the record is revoked.
- No stock, no ribbon, no printer time — nothing physical to hold, spoil or run out of.
- Short-stay cohorts — contractors, short courses and exam-period surges, where printing plastic was always a poor fit.
For most institutions, the answer is both
“Plastic or digital” is only a hard choice when they are two systems. With one credential system there is one record, one serial number and one verification code — the plastic card and the wallet pass are the same credential in two formats, issued together and revoked together. Cancel the record and both die at once; there is no window where the card is dead but the pass still looks alive.
That turns the strategy question into a smaller, more practical one: which formats does each cohort need? Print plastic for the population that needs doors. Add the pass for everyone by default — it costs nothing to carry. Go digital-only for the short-stay cohorts where plastic was always waste.
Which format for which cohort
Every institution differs, but this is where the conversation usually lands:
| Use case | Recommendation |
|---|---|
| Staff and students | Both — plastic for doors and at-a-glance checks, pass on the phone by default. |
| Contractors | Digital first, issued and revoked with the engagement; plastic only where site rules require it. |
| Visitors | Digital only — issued on arrival, revoked on departure, nothing to post back. |
| Exam-only cohorts | Digital only — issued for the exam window in one batch, revoked when it closes. |
| High-security areas | Plastic, with the pass alongside — wherever readers or policy require a physical credential. |
The shape of the cost, not the number
A wallet pass consumes no stock and no courier. A plastic card carries card stock, ribbon, spoilage, and either courier delivery or your own printer's time — every replacement repeats all of it. That is why digital-only suits the cohorts that churn, and why adding the pass to a population that already gets plastic changes issuance behaviour more than it changes the bill. How the numbers work for your volumes is on how pricing works.
How CardOffice does it
In CardOffice, digital ID is not a separate product. The pass in Apple Wallet or Google Wallet is issued from the same cardholder record as the printed card, carries the same serial and verification code, and is revoked in the same action. The detail is on the digital ID page.
Work it through against your own cohorts
Tell us who you issue to — staff, students, contractors, visitors — and what your doors read today, and we will tell you plainly which formats make sense where. No obligation, and no wallet hype.