The present invention relates to a method and system for managing profiles for use with touch systems. A user logs into a communal device using a pointer paired with a mobile device. The communal device is authenticated and retrieves the user's profile. The user profile is used to setup a workspace on the communal device. The workspace is granted access to the user's content on a content server. When the communal device has multiple users, each workspace may be shared or not depending on the user's requirements. Each pointer is individually identified to a particular user and workspace.