UWB launches electronic JIS card. Twenty users test phone access instead of plastic card

Selected students and staff will be the first to test using the university ID on their mobile phones as naturally as a payment card. In full operation, everyone at UWB will be able to download the electronic JIS card during the summer semester.

Since the beginning of January, a pilot group of around twenty students and staff have been testing the electronic JIS card, the University of West Bohemia student and employee ID card, at three locations on campus: the turnstiles at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, the Ladislav Sutnar Faculty of Design and Art, and the side entrance to the Faculty of Applied Sciences. Later in January, one cashier desk in the canteen will also begin accepting the e-JIS card, with additional campus locations to follow.

“The goal is for the electronic card in full operation to handle everything the plastic one does today — access to buildings, turnstiles, the canteen, the library or the printing system,” explained Šárka Zuzjaková from UWB’s Centre of Informatization and Computing Technology. To make this possible, the university will gradually replace around 1,500 card readers across all its buildings. The first large-scale replacements will start already in January. Readers that support the electronic card are marked with an NFC logo, making it clear at a glance where a mobile phone can be used.

Because the readers must be replaced to make broader use of the e-JIS worthwhile, students and staff will be able to download their electronic card slightly later during summer semester. Downloading the card will require confirmation in the university portal, which will then send a one-time link by email. “It works very much like adding a bank card to a mobile phone. The link can be used only once, we limit the number of devices, and identity is verified directly through the portal,” Šárka Zuzjaková said. According to her, the electronic version may even be more secure than the plastic card.

With this step, the University of West Bohemia in Pilsen joins a small group of Czech universities that have introduced an electronic university card as a full replacement for the plastic version. “In terms of digital university identity, we are genuinely among the first. This is not just technology testing — it is a practical change designed to make everyday life at the university simpler,” concluded UWB Rector Miroslav Lávička.