The present invention provides for a system that makes use of a system power supply enable switch controlled by a near field communications (NFC) frontend with energy harvesting. In one embodiment, RF power in the 13.56 MHz band generated by a NFC counterpart (such as a mobile phone) is detected by the energy harvesting unit being part of the battery-unpowered NFC communication device. After activation, the system can perform actions required to communicate to the presented device (i.e., the NFC counterpart). Later, the system can switch itself into the unpowered state again. In another embodiment, this feature can also be used to control an NFC protection circuitry very quickly after the NFC device is exposed to an external HF (high frequency) field.