TALQ Certification Process has Improved Security

November 2, 2023

The TALQ Consortium, which developed the Smart City Protocol, a global interface standard for smart city applications, recently added more security to its certification procedures.

For several years, a rigorous certification process has enabled TALQ-compliant products to be interoperable with one another. Only official listing on the consortium’s website proves that the TALQ Specification has been implemented in a product and so has been officially certified. Now, an online version of the TALQ Certification Tool (TCT), replacing the stand-alone software, will bring the overall process reliability to a new level. Cities asking for TALQ-compliant systems in their tenders can rely on an even more robust and fraud-resistant certification process.

Since 2017, the Consortium has verified and awarded TALQ-compliance to manufacturers that implemented the TALQ interface standard successfully into their systems, thereby enabling interoperability with systems from different vendors. A core component of the strict certification procedure is a test tool suite – called TALQ Certification Tool (TCT) – that examines the correct implementation and functionality by testing a number of smart lighting and other smart city use cases. With the TCT, every member can gain experience, experiment, and test their own TALQ integrations for as long and as often as they want. In doing so, companies can make sure that their products can interoperate with other systems and can test whether they are ready for certification.

Enabling Interoperability and Protecting the Certification Process

The tool itself, with its feature set – which is being continuously enlarged and updated according to new requirements – is an important asset for the consortium. With the new online version, the TCT (and its binary code) will be protected from potentially malicious use and from third parties. This is why cities and other end users, like utilities, can fully rely on TALQ-certified products, according to the Consortium. The online version also ensures that every member always has access to the latest version of the TCT and is thereby able to integrate the latest profiles and newest smart city applications use cases into products under development. TALQ members have cost-free 24/7 access to the test tool.

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