Tor Sørnes

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Tor Sørnes, 1925-, inventor and engineer. Inventor of the first recodable keycard lock (the VingCard®) and the magnetic stripe keycard lock. Born November 11th 1925 in Sola, Norway. Son of inventor, radio technician and clock maker Rasmus Sørnes. In 1975 Tor Sørnes launched the first recodeable cardkey lock, the VingCard®, which used a holecard plastic key. He then led the development of and patented the electronic keycard lock, based on the magnetic stripe key.

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. The factory made locks and iceskates 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 recodeable keycard lock, 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 planet at the time. This lock system was patented in 29 countries.

Export of the system was initialized in 1978 when it was installed Peachtree Plaza Hotel in Atlanta, 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 magnetic stripe card lock was launched and became a world wide succes. Tor Sørnes contiued as a vice president and director of R&D at VingCard® until retirement in 1992.