Every building needs a way to control who gets in and who stays out. For decades, keycards have been the default answer. Swipe or tap a card, and the door opens. It is simple, familiar, and widely available. But as security threats evolve and buildings get smarter, many facility managers are asking whether keycards are still good enough, or whether face recognition offers a better alternative.
This article breaks down how each system works, where keycards fall short, what face recognition brings to the table, and how the two compare across the factors that matter most. If you are evaluating a keycard replacement or upgrading your building's access control system, this comparison will help you make an informed decision. For a broader look at how AI is transforming building security, see our complete smart building security guide.
How Keycard Access Control Works
Keycard systems are straightforward. Each authorized person receives a plastic card embedded with a chip or magnetic strip. When they hold the card near a reader at a door or turnstile, the reader checks the card's code against a database of permissions. If the code matches, the door unlocks. If not, it stays closed.
This approach has served buildings well for many years, but it has several built-in limitations that become harder to ignore as security expectations rise.
Cards are not identities. A keycard proves that someone is holding a valid card. It does not prove that the person holding it is the one it was issued to. If a card is lost, stolen, or shared, anyone who has it can walk right in. The system has no way to tell the difference.
Administrative overhead adds up. Every new hire needs a card. Every lost card needs a replacement. Every departing employee needs their card deactivated. In large organizations with contractors, temporary workers, and regular turnover, managing thousands of active keycards becomes a constant drain on time and budget.
Tailgating is hard to prevent. When one person badges through a door, a second person can follow closely behind without scanning anything. Keycards offer no built-in mechanism to detect or stop this. Security guards can watch for it, but that relies on human attention that is not always consistent.
Cards wear out and break. Magnetic strips demagnetize. Cards crack. Readers malfunction. The physical nature of keycards introduces ongoing maintenance and replacement costs that accumulate over time.
How Face Recognition Access Control Works
Face recognition takes a fundamentally different approach. Instead of verifying a card, it verifies the person. A camera at the access point captures the individual's face as they approach. AI software compares that face against a database of enrolled, authorized people. If there is a match, the door opens. The whole process takes less than a second, and the person never needs to reach into a pocket or bag.
Visionaire, Nodeflux's AI analytics engine, powers this kind of face recognition access. It processes live camera feeds in real time and matches faces with high accuracy, even under different lighting conditions and camera angles. Because the system works with standard IP cameras, it can often be deployed on top of the camera infrastructure a building already has.
The key advantage is that a face cannot be lost, forgotten, lent to a friend, or picked up off the ground by a stranger. The credential is the person themselves. This makes face recognition inherently more secure than any system built around a physical token.
Side-by-Side Comparison
When choosing the best access control system for buildings, it helps to compare keycards and face recognition across the factors that matter most to facility managers and building owners.
Security
Keycards verify a token. Face recognition verifies a person. If your primary concern is making sure that only the right individuals enter your building, face recognition offers a level of assurance that keycards simply cannot match. Shared, lost, and stolen credentials are no longer a risk because the credential cannot be separated from the person it belongs to.
Face recognition also helps address tailgating. The system can compare the number of detected faces with the number of access grants. If two people pass through but only one was recognized and authorized, a real-time alert goes to the security team.
Cost
Keycards have a lower upfront cost. Readers and cards are relatively inexpensive, and the technology is widely available. However, the ongoing operational costs are often underestimated. Purchasing cards in bulk, replacing lost or damaged ones, maintaining readers, and dedicating staff time to credential management all add up year after year.
Face recognition requires a higher initial investment in cameras and AI software. But once deployed, the recurring costs are significantly lower. There are no physical credentials to purchase, issue, or replace. Enrollment is done digitally. When an employee leaves, their profile is deactivated in the system with a few clicks. Over the lifespan of the system, many facilities find that face recognition costs less overall.
Convenience
With a keycard, you always need to have it on you. Forget it at home, and you are locked out. Dig through a bag to find it during the morning rush, and you slow down the line behind you.
Face recognition is hands-free. You walk up, the camera sees you, and the door opens. There is nothing to carry, nothing to forget, and nothing to fumble with. For employees who enter and exit a building multiple times a day, the time saved and the friction removed are noticeable. It also creates a more professional and modern experience for visitors and tenants.
Scalability
Scaling a keycard system means ordering more cards, setting up more readers, and increasing the administrative workload to manage a growing number of credentials. For multi-building campuses or organizations with many locations, the logistics of physical credential management become complex.
Scaling face recognition is largely a software exercise. Adding a new building or access point means connecting another camera to the platform. Enrolling a new employee means adding their face to the database, which can be done from anywhere. A smart building solution built on face recognition can grow from a single lobby to a multi-site campus without the administrative burden that physical cards create.