Discover the Benefits of SIA OSDP for Your Access Control and Security Products

By SIA on March 21, 2025 | , |

Over the past few years, the Security Industry Association’s (SIA’s) Open Supervised Device Protocol (OSDP) standard – developed by SIA to improve interoperability among access control and security products – has been steadily gaining momentum as the standard for secure access control. More practitioners are demanding increased security and advanced functionality within their security environments, and leading companies are continually harnessing the power of OSDP and releasing products that meet customer demands.

Why Specify or Adopt OSDP?

Compared to common low-security legacy protocols, the OSDP standard offers:

  • Higher security: OSDP is more secure than the most common access control communications protocol. OSDP Secure Channel supports high-end AES-128 encryption (required in federal government applications), and OSDP constantly monitors wiring to protect against attack threats.
  • Advanced functionality: OSDP supports advance smartcard technology applications, including PKI/FICAM and biometrics; bidirectional communications among devices; and advanced user interface, including welcome messages and text prompts, and its use of 2 wires instead of 12+ allows for multidrop installation, supervised connections to indicate reader malfunctions and scalability to connect more field devices.
  • Ease of use: Audiovisual user feedback mechanisms provide a rich, user-centric access control environment. OSDP also eliminates the guesswork, since encryption and authentication are predefined, and there is a low cost of implementation on an embedded device.
  • More interoperability: Using OSDP enables communication among different manufacturers’ devices and solutions. The standard applies to peripheral devices such as card readers and other devices at secured access doors/gates and their control panels. OSDP is currently recommended when TCP/IP, USB or other common protocols do not lend themselves to the application, and is extensible to IP environments.

Interested in implementing OSDP in your solutions? SIA offers OSDP Boot Camp training, a daylong in-depth course on how to configure and deploy modern, interoperable, OSDP-compliant access control systems. Attendees will learn how to more effectively do business with sophisticated firms that demand current security technologies, receive the information needed to train teams on OSDP, gain the skills to transition from legacy access control to today’s modern technologies and more. Missed signing up for the OSDP Boot Camp session at ISC West 2025? Join us Sept. 10 at SIA’s offices for the next training or at ISC East in November for another opportunity to take the course! Learn more and register for a future offering here.

Already using OSDP? Consider becoming OSDP Verified! SIA OSDP Verified is a comprehensive testing program that validates that a device conforms to the SIA OSDP standard and the related performance profiles. Products that are OSDP Verified are displayed in the OSDP Verified Product List and can use the SIA OSDP Verified mark in marketing materials. Learn more here.

While you’re at ISC West 2025, attend The Interface: A Tech-Forward Social Event on Thursday, April 3, to learn more about OSDP! Join us from 4-6 p.m. in Venetian 401-402 for “face off” boxing ring-style tech debates, great food, cold drinks, games and lively networking. Use these 2 hours to “hack your network” and make some new connections with the brightest tech stars of ISC West. This won’t be your standard networking event! And for even more information, visit the OSDP page or stop by booth #8089.