NFC digital business cards, often made of sleek stainless steel, are becoming increasingly popular. But are they safe? If you're someone who doesn't mind having your contact details easily accessible online-like realtors who publicly list their information on Zillow or their websites-then you might not have much to worry about. However, if privacy is a priority for you, it's essential to understand how these cards work and the potential risks before jumping on the NFC digital business card trend.
How do NFC digital business cards work?
To understand the privacy implications, let's dive into how NFC digital business cards actually work. Companies like Popl and Blinq offer these physical cards, which are essentially web pages with your contact information. This webpage link is encoded into an NFC tag embedded in a physical card-often plastic or stainless steel-and shipped to you.
While NFC business card providers take steps to protect your privacy, such as using hard-to-guess URLs, the reality is that the link to your digital business card is always online. And because the NFC tag is hard-coded, the URL can't be easily changed. This means that over time, there's a risk that someone, or even an automated web-crawling bot, could find the link and access your personal information, such as your email address or phone number.
You can learn more about how digital business cards work here.
Should you be concerned about privacy?
Here's a simple test: If you're comfortable with your personal information being publicly accessible, you probably don't need to worry. However, if you're concerned about privacy but still want the convenience of a digital business card, you should consider using a service like Lynkle.
How Lynkle solves the privacy problem
At Lynkle, we've addressed this issue by introducing "Private Card Sharing." This feature ensures that your digital business card is only accessible when you share it through Apple Wallet, Google Wallet, or the Lynkle web app's "Lynkle Send" feature. We regularly update the link to your digital business card and automatically push these updates to all sharing interfaces, including mobile wallets. This approach significantly reduces the risk of unauthorized access to your personal information.
The future of NFC digital business cards
There's still a lot of potential for NFC digital business cards. Your smart phone already has built-in NFC capabilities that can be programmed to share your business card privately, eliminating the need for physical cards and offering a more eco-friendly solution.
Android phones currently allow developers to leverage NFC for private sharing, and Apple may soon open up similar capabilities, making digital business cards even safer.
P.S.
Stay tuned if you're a Lynkle customer and still want an NFC digital business card! We're working on a how-to guide on turning Lynkle cards into an NFC digital business card yourself at a fraction of the cost compared to what's available on the market.
