Tor Sørnes (11 November 1925 – 21 June 2017) was a Norwegian author, politician, engineer and the designer and inventor of the VingCard, the first recodable

keycard lock A keycard lock is a lock operated by a keycard, a flat, rectangular plastic card. The card typically, but not always, has identical dimensions to that of a credit card or American and EU driver's license. The card stores a physical or digital ...

and the

magnetic stripe The term digital card can refer to a physical item, such as a memory card on a camera, or, increasingly since 2017, to the digital content hosted as a virtual card or cloud card, as a digital virtual representation of a physical card. They share ...

Biography

Tor Sørnes was born in

Sola Sola is a municipality and a Seaside resort in Rogaland county, Norway. It is located in the traditional district of Jæren. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Solakrossen. Other villages include Tananger, Hål ...

, Rogaland county,

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the ...

as a son of inventor, radio technician and clockmaker

Rasmus Sørnes Rasmus Jonassen Sørnes (22 March 1893 – 15 February 1967), was a Norwegian inventor, clockmaker and radio technician, and is most famous for his advanced astronomical clocks, the most precise of which has an inaccuracy of 7 seconds during 1000 ...

. Being the son of an inventor, Tor Sørnes occupied himself with technical matters already as a child. In 1950 he was employed a production planner at steel and ironware factory Christiania Staal & Jernvarefabrikk in

Moss, Norway is a coastal List of cities in Norway, town and a Municipalities of Norway, municipality in Viken (county), Viken Counties of Norway, county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Moss. The city of Moss was establis ...

. The factory made

locks Lock(s) may refer to: Common meanings *Lock and key, a mechanical device used to secure items of importance *Lock (water navigation), a device for boats to transit between different levels of water, as in a canal Arts and entertainment * ''Lock ...

and

ice skate Ice skates are metal blades attached underfoot and used to propel the bearer across a sheet of ice while ice skating. The first ice skates were made from leg bones of horse, ox or deer, and were attached to feet with leather straps. These skates ...

s under the brand Ving. In 1955 he became the factory's machine constructor and when the factory in 1960—as one of the first in the country—established a department of research and development, he was its director. In 1975 he launched the holecard based recodable

, where each new hotel guest could have his/her own unique key formed by a pattern of 32 holes in a plastic card. The invention is still in worldwide hotel security use under the brand VingCard. The 32 holes in the key gave 4.2 billion combinations, the precise same number as the population of the earth at the time. This lock system was patented in 29 countries. In 1975 Tor Sørnes launched the first recodable cardkey lock, the VingCard, which used a holecard plastic key. He then led the development of and patented the electronic

, based on the

key. Export of the system was initiated in 1978 when it was installed in Peachtree Plaza Hotel in

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

, Georgia, at the time the world's tallest hotel. The hotel had been troubled by burglaries and was eager to test new security innovations. In 1992–93 the electronic

card lock was launched and became a worldwide success. Tor Sørnes continued as a vice president and director of R&D at VingCard until retirement in 1992. Following the merger in November 1994 between VingCard's former owners, Abloy Security, and the Swedish

Securitas AB Securitas AB is a security services (security guarding and mobile patrolling), monitoring, consulting and investigation group, based in Stockholm, Sweden. The group has over 300,000 employees in 53 countries worldwide. Securitas AB is listed at ...

, VingCard is now part of

Assa Abloy Assa Abloy AB is a Swedish conglomerate whose offerings include products and services related to locks, doors, gates, and entrance automation. Related products and services include controlling access and confirming identities with keys, cards, ...

, a Swedish lock manufacturer. Tor Sørnes is a retired member of Moss city council, and lives in

Jeløy Jeløy (until 1920 named ''Moss herred'' - ''Moss rural district'') was a former municipality in Østfold county, Norway. Jeløy was established as a municipality January 1, 1838 (see formannskapsdistrikt). It was merged with the urban municipali ...

.Moss avis, 16 August 2005. "Tor Sørnes er .tidligere bystyremedlem, bosatt på Jeløy" He is the father of author Torgrim Sørnes.

Selected works

*2003 – ''Klokkemakeren Rasmus Sørnes'' (Borgarsyssel Museum, Sarpsborg Norway)

References

External links

VingCard official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sornes, Tor 1925 births 2017 deaths Locksmiths Norwegian inventors People from Sola Conservative Party (Norway) politicians no:Tor Sørnes