Attendee trade show badges with 2D bar codes containing demographic information and printed with the attendee’s name have been around for a long time but are gradually being replaced by ones with a QR code and a lot less data. Whether planned or by accident the current trend is helping to address a growing concern voiced by trade show attendees – DATA SECURITY!!!
In 1996, as a founding member of one of the early companies providing third party “lead retrieval” systems to the trade show industry, I viewed the efforts of registration companies to encrypt the attendee badges as attempts to protect their lead retrieval revenue. Why else would they hide data willingly given by attendees from exhibitors who were merely trying to collect better lead data using their own devices rather than those rented from the registration company?
However, it was not long before the 2D bar code became the standard and registration companies made the best of the situation by charging exhibitors for test badges but in general cooperating with exhibitors’ efforts to implement their own systems. In fact, with the advent of the smart phone, lead retrieval becomes a commodity and in many cases is offered at a small fee as part of the show APP. However, instead of providing attendees with a badge that is easy for exhibitors to electronically read demographic data, the 2D bar coded badge can also be a walking invitation to anyone with a smart phone and a scanner or just a camera to access their personal information, including their email address.
As technology has moved on so too has the strategy of many leading registration companies regarding access to attendee badge data. This time rather than encrypting the badge data in 2D barcodes they have begun to provide badges with QR codes that contain only the badge ID number and little more. Scanning this code only discloses the badge number. The underlying data is only accessible through a secure on-line Application Program Interface (API) that can be licensed by the exhibitor for a fee for that event.
So why today are registration companies again limiting access to the attendee data, is it once more just about the money? Perhaps so, but I think whether planned or by accident the current strategies also help to address a growing concern voiced by trade show attendees and organizers alike. That concern is DATA SECURITY!!!
By insuring that access to the attendee data is controlled and available only to licensed exhibitors, the registration company is helping to keep sensitive attendee data private. These APIs provide online access on a record by record basis over the Internet using a secure HTTPS connection with appropriate credential checking. The data is made available to the exhibitor in a standard JSON or XML format that can be read by devices rented from the show, owned by the exhibitor or supplied by a third party. The attendee demographic data is then stored in the exhibitor’s database in the form of a lead. The exhibitor can then add qualifying information and notes to facilitate post show follow-up on the part of sales and marketing.
Providing API access to attendee data to only those with a proven need to know (licensed exhibitors) will help eliminate some of the security concerns of attendees while at the same time enabling exhibitors to use the lead retrieval systems of their choice. The best of both worlds.
