The Long Island Board of Realtors has issued identification cards embedded with “Smart Card” technology to all of its members for use with a National Association of Realtors-sponsored lockbox technology.
The board uses lockboxes manufactured by SentriLock LLC, a company that is majority-owned by the Realtor association, and the SentriCards serve as photo identification and a secure electronic “key” to open lockboxes placed on for-sale homes.
About 100 Realtor associations, which represent about 105,000 agents, are signed up to use Sentrilock’s Realtor Lockbox system. The Long Island Board has about 28,000 members.
The SentriCards are credit-card-sized and contain an embedded chip with security data for the lockbox system. The chip is immune to magnetic fields and is built with “tamper detection logic and circuitry” and use encryption technology to guard against copying and alteration, according to an announcement by the National Association of Realtors.
“These secure photo ID cards will allow for nearly real-time confirmation of an agent’s MLS membership status,” the announcement states. “This will provide broker offices with a fast, simple and secure method of verifying an agent’s identity and membership status prior to turning over keys or other sensitive documents.”
The Long Island Board of Realtors serves real estate professionals in New York’s Nassau, Suffolk and Queens counties.
The National Association of Realtors got into the lockbox business to introduce a competing product to Supra lockboxes, which are offered by a General Electric Co. subsidiary.
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