- Email: [email protected]
France launches biometric border control pilot
news Continued from page 1... estimated that SimPay would generate 1 billion euros in revenues through its system by 2007. The m-payments scheme was expected to launch in Spain and Belgium this year but has now been ditched following the withdrawal of T-Mobile, a Deutsche Telekom subsidiary. A statement on the SimPay Web site says following the withdrawal of a founder member, a decision was made “not to pursue its activity on a pan-European scale as originally planned”. SimPay says its member operators will be able to exploit its intellectual property rights at a national level, and international interoperability still remains a goal but operations will be scaled back with immediate effect. It has been reported that T-Mobile pulled out of the alliance because it wanted to concentrate on its Web’n’Walk service, that it is launching across Europe and gives mobile phone users access to all the internet sites they are accustomed to accessing from their PCs – including existing financial services and payments sites. SimPay would have been limited purely to merchants who had signed up for the scheme.
id card
French ID card plans must be reviewed As national ID card plans are mauled by opposition parties in the UK, the plans for a biometric-based e-ID card in France have also attracted criticism. A report has just been published on behalf of the French Ministry of the Interior by the Internet Rights Forum, which is an advisory body representing approximately 70 organisations from both the public, private and not-for-profit sectors. It raised concerns surrounding the e-ID card project (codenamed INES) and calls for a review of the scheme. The report said: “The reasons invoked by the Ministry of the Interior to justify the INES project are not convincing enough…Identity fraud, which was presented as a major reason for switching to e-ID, could not be accurately estimated.” The report was the result of four months (February to June 2005) of national debate on the proposed electronic ID card. It attracted significant interest, with more than 3,000 contributions received online and over 600 people taking part in six public meetings. According to the report, citizens requested more guarantees to be provided regarding privacy, security, and the use of biometric data. Concerns
Card Technology Today July/August 2005
surrounding costs and the government’s intention to make the cards mandatory were also raised. In spite of the concerns expressed, however, the survey revealed that 74% of citizens are in favour of the card and that 69% of citizens would welcome a mandatory card. Some 75% of French citizens supported the creation of a national fingerprint database to tackle ID fraud. This level of popular support for the e-ID card should come as welcome relief for the French government as its INES project has been facing mounting criticism from many areas of society. In May this year, six organisations representing a range of civil society and professional sectors launched a campaign and a petition against the project, and in early June the Association of French Mayors (AMF) also voiced its opposition and demanded the total and immediate withdrawal of the e-ID card initiative. The French Government now intends to present a draft legal framework for the initiative by the end of June this year.
border control
France launches biometric border control pilot A voluntary air passenger identification trial has been launched by Air France at Roissy Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris. In cooperation with the French border police and the Ministry of the Interior, Air France will offer the PEGASE (Experimental Programme for Secure Automated Access Control) service to passengers within the European Union and for Swiss citizens. In essence the project is designed to speed up the passage of travellers through border control, while maintaining a high level of security. The 12 month trial will also test the performance of the smart card and biometric authentication system, measure its benefits and study its impact on passengers. The fingerprint recognition based system is being tested at the airport’s terminal F2, with the technology being provided by French systems integrator Sagem. Passengers are required to register themselves with the border police, who will be responsible for collecting the fingerprints and a host of personal information, such as name, date of birth, place of birth, address, nationality and so on. A centralised database will store the personal details as well as images of the passengers’ left and right index fingerprints. The details will also be stored in a smart card which is held by the passenger – it is the smart card, rather
in brief • Precise Biometrics has entered into a threeyear agreement with Malaysian smart card company IRIS for the supply of Precise BioMatch licenses to IRIS. Precise Biometrics will become a supplier for IRIS’ high-end mobile and desktop smart card terminals and IRIS has integrated Precise BioMatch into its entire product line, both readers and smart cards. Concrete future projects have already been initiated. The agreement is expected to generate SEK 3.5 million (US$450,000) in revenue for Precise Biometrics in the first phase. • Abbey is to become the first UK bank to allow customers to personalise the design of their bank cards. Oberthur Card Systems is providing the technology in the form of a Datacard Artista custom card printer, enabling high-speed prints at 1,000 cards per hour. The Abbey Photocard is a card service that lets people put a favourite photo or picture on their debit card. Abbey customers can use the personalisation system online at Abbey.com and within a few days of submitting the card design, a fully personalised card is delivered direct to the customer. • Assa Abloy ITG has acquired the rights to all of the patents filed by David Finn before 12 March 2002. The most important patents regard the embedding of insulated electrical wire into synthetic materials, which has significant implications for the manufacturing of RFID transponders and contactless cards. Applications of this technology include electronic passports, contactless payments and animal identification. • Research In Motion (RIM) has introduced a Bluetooth enabled smart card reader that is lightweight and wearable. The BlackBerry Smart Card Reader uses advanced AES-256 encryption, it is FIPS 140-2 validated and can be used to comply with government or corporate security requirements, the supplier claims. The reader also provides support for a variety of industry standard smart cards including the US Department of Defense’s Common Access Card (CAC). SRA International, a service provider and strategic consulting firm, will work with RIM to deploy the BlackBerry Smart Card Reader within government organisations. • Following the launch of the GemInstant PayPass, Gemplus has announced that it has received full certification from MasterCard International. The solution consists of a MasterCard payment card with a built-in chip and antenna allowing users to tap their smart cards on specially-equipped PayPass terminals. The cards will be produced at Gemplus’ recently enhanced card manufacturing facility in Pennsylvania.
3
news
in brief • VeriFone has completed a fast track Chip and PIN migration for UK travel firm Thomas Cook using the EMV pre-approved Ocius solution from Commidea. The Ocius solution is based on VeriFone’s Omni 3750 and SC 5000 secure consumer-facing device and will be installed in 600 Thomas Cook branches. The Ocius application has been designed to run on a range of VeriFone IPenabled products and is capable of supporting Chip and PIN and/or signature verification. • Moroccan oil company, Afriquia, has taken delivery of smart cards from Axalto’s Java Palmera line for its private payment system. It is claimed to be the first implementation of a private payment programme using Java-based cards by an oil company in Africa. Afriquia issues the smart card as a proprietary charge card that lets its business customers pay for, manage and control all fuel and service expenses for their vehicle fleets and employee owned cars. Under the programme, the cards can also be used to pay for road tolls and related services, such as car repairs, at Afriquia’s partners. • Shere, a UK supplier of self-service ticket machines, has chosen Hypercom to provide its technology for unattended ticketing machines at UK railway stations. Under the terms of the initial US$1 million agreement, Hypercom will provide Shere with an off-the-shelf EMV and Visa PED-approved chip and PIN-based credit and debit card payment solution that integrates directly into Shere’s hardware. The Hypercom self-serve card payment solution includes Hypercom’s K1100 keypad and display device and Optimum H2200 Motorized Magtek card reader. Hypercom has supplied several hundred units that have already been incorporated into Shere’s existing railway installations, eliminating the need to replace ticketing equipment to accommodate the new card payment system. • The Smart Card Alliance has formed a healthcare council to promote the adoption of smart cards in US healthcare organisations. This initiative comes as smart card technology is increasingly being used in healthcare applications to enable secure access to patient information to improve care and administration. The council will be managed by a steering committee made up of participants from across the healthcare and smart card industry and one of its initial projects will be to examine current implementations. The council will also describe the benefits and best practices for smart card deployment in various healthcare environments and it will seek partnerships with standards-setting groups and other organisations who aim to achieve common standards for electronic medical records.
4
than the central database, that is used for verification of the passenger’s identity in the trial. To use the system the passenger places their smart card in front of a reader positioned by the two entry points. This opens one of the doors to the verification booth, which closes once the passenger has entered. The customer then places one of their two registered fingerprints onto the biometric reader. If the fingerprint matches that stored on the card, the exit door opens, allowing the passenger to pass through. If it fails, a side door is activated requiring the passenger to use the traditional security clearance procedure. While the programme has the potential to raise privacy concerns, it was given a boost following approval by France’s data protection body, the National Commission for Informatics and Liberty (CNIL). CNIL said the scheme was acceptable due to its voluntary nature. At the end of the project all data stored by the border police are to be destroyed. Participants in the programme also have the right to access or correct their personal data, as well as the right to withdrawal from the programme at any time.
emv
Italy takes bulk delivery of EMV cards Italy has taken delivery of its first mass shipment of EMV smart cards. French smart card manufacturer Gemplus announced that it is supplying the more than one million smart payment cards to Setefi – the card processing business of Italian banking group, Intesa which is one of the largest in Italy. EMV migration is still largely in its pilot stages in the region but the migration process is expected to ramp up in the second half of 2005. Setefi claims it is the first bank to deliver mass volumes of cards to the market. The order will strengthen Gemplus’ position in the financial sector in Southern Europe. By the end of June 2005, the supplier had delivered 500,000 cards to Setefi, where the personalisation process is carried out. The cards are intended for credit and debit payment applications, as well as for Intesa Group’s specific payment application, Moneta. The cards will be produced at Gemplus’ specialised European PVC manufacturing facility in Havant, UK. Contact: Steve Lacourt at Gemplus Financial Services Business Unit, Tel: +32 2 711 48 20, Fax: +32 (0) 2 725 14 60, Email: [email protected]
company news
Record results for Orga’s banking unit ORGA Kartensysteme’s banking unit has posted record half-year shipments to the financial community, delivering more cards in the first six months of this year than it shipped in all of 2004. The company said that efforts to revamp its product portfolio, plus the reorganization of its worldwide production facilities, enabled the banking unit to ship more than 30 million cards by the end of June 2005, compared to 24 million cards for the whole of 2004. As part of Orga’s strategy to shift from a technology driven company to a service driven enterprise, several decisive actions were undertaken in 2004 and are now paying off. One crucial factor was to completely reposition ORGA’s financial services product portfolio to become a lean, but competitive, EMV smart card portfolio. Another important step was the reorganisation of ORGA’s international production portfolio. It now has locations worldwide in Brazil, Germany, Russia, USA and Asia, as well as strategic partnerships with international bureaus such as FDI in the UK. Contact: Daniela Koch at Orga Kartensysteme, Tel: +49 52 51 8892808, email: [email protected]
java card
Java Card sales to accelerate It took 10 years to ship the first billion Javabased smart cards, but according to Olivier Piou, CEO of French smart card manufacturer Axalto the next billion will take less than three years. Piou made the prediction at the recent JavaOne conference in the USA, where he was interviewed on stage by Scott McNealy, chairman and CEO of Sun Microsystems, as part of a demonstration to highlight how Java is now permeating so many areas of society. Java Card is predominantly used in SIM cards for mobile phones (with 42% of SIM cards shipped with the technology last year, according to industry estimates), but Piou pointed to various other exciting areas where the technology is being used. “We have just shipped some two million cards to Puerto Rico for use in its health programme, in order to improve the distribution of healthcare and benefits for poor people,” Piou commented, and added that the new ePassport market is also
Card Technology Today July/August 2005
id card
French ID card plans must be reviewed As national ID card plans are mauled by opposition parties in the UK, the plans for a biometric-based e-ID card in France have also attracted criticism. A report has just been published on behalf of the French Ministry of the Interior by the Internet Rights Forum, which is an advisory body representing approximately 70 organisations from both the public, private and not-for-profit sectors. It raised concerns surrounding the e-ID card project (codenamed INES) and calls for a review of the scheme. The report said: “The reasons invoked by the Ministry of the Interior to justify the INES project are not convincing enough…Identity fraud, which was presented as a major reason for switching to e-ID, could not be accurately estimated.” The report was the result of four months (February to June 2005) of national debate on the proposed electronic ID card. It attracted significant interest, with more than 3,000 contributions received online and over 600 people taking part in six public meetings. According to the report, citizens requested more guarantees to be provided regarding privacy, security, and the use of biometric data. Concerns
Card Technology Today July/August 2005
surrounding costs and the government’s intention to make the cards mandatory were also raised. In spite of the concerns expressed, however, the survey revealed that 74% of citizens are in favour of the card and that 69% of citizens would welcome a mandatory card. Some 75% of French citizens supported the creation of a national fingerprint database to tackle ID fraud. This level of popular support for the e-ID card should come as welcome relief for the French government as its INES project has been facing mounting criticism from many areas of society. In May this year, six organisations representing a range of civil society and professional sectors launched a campaign and a petition against the project, and in early June the Association of French Mayors (AMF) also voiced its opposition and demanded the total and immediate withdrawal of the e-ID card initiative. The French Government now intends to present a draft legal framework for the initiative by the end of June this year.
border control
France launches biometric border control pilot A voluntary air passenger identification trial has been launched by Air France at Roissy Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris. In cooperation with the French border police and the Ministry of the Interior, Air France will offer the PEGASE (Experimental Programme for Secure Automated Access Control) service to passengers within the European Union and for Swiss citizens. In essence the project is designed to speed up the passage of travellers through border control, while maintaining a high level of security. The 12 month trial will also test the performance of the smart card and biometric authentication system, measure its benefits and study its impact on passengers. The fingerprint recognition based system is being tested at the airport’s terminal F2, with the technology being provided by French systems integrator Sagem. Passengers are required to register themselves with the border police, who will be responsible for collecting the fingerprints and a host of personal information, such as name, date of birth, place of birth, address, nationality and so on. A centralised database will store the personal details as well as images of the passengers’ left and right index fingerprints. The details will also be stored in a smart card which is held by the passenger – it is the smart card, rather
in brief • Precise Biometrics has entered into a threeyear agreement with Malaysian smart card company IRIS for the supply of Precise BioMatch licenses to IRIS. Precise Biometrics will become a supplier for IRIS’ high-end mobile and desktop smart card terminals and IRIS has integrated Precise BioMatch into its entire product line, both readers and smart cards. Concrete future projects have already been initiated. The agreement is expected to generate SEK 3.5 million (US$450,000) in revenue for Precise Biometrics in the first phase. • Abbey is to become the first UK bank to allow customers to personalise the design of their bank cards. Oberthur Card Systems is providing the technology in the form of a Datacard Artista custom card printer, enabling high-speed prints at 1,000 cards per hour. The Abbey Photocard is a card service that lets people put a favourite photo or picture on their debit card. Abbey customers can use the personalisation system online at Abbey.com and within a few days of submitting the card design, a fully personalised card is delivered direct to the customer. • Assa Abloy ITG has acquired the rights to all of the patents filed by David Finn before 12 March 2002. The most important patents regard the embedding of insulated electrical wire into synthetic materials, which has significant implications for the manufacturing of RFID transponders and contactless cards. Applications of this technology include electronic passports, contactless payments and animal identification. • Research In Motion (RIM) has introduced a Bluetooth enabled smart card reader that is lightweight and wearable. The BlackBerry Smart Card Reader uses advanced AES-256 encryption, it is FIPS 140-2 validated and can be used to comply with government or corporate security requirements, the supplier claims. The reader also provides support for a variety of industry standard smart cards including the US Department of Defense’s Common Access Card (CAC). SRA International, a service provider and strategic consulting firm, will work with RIM to deploy the BlackBerry Smart Card Reader within government organisations. • Following the launch of the GemInstant PayPass, Gemplus has announced that it has received full certification from MasterCard International. The solution consists of a MasterCard payment card with a built-in chip and antenna allowing users to tap their smart cards on specially-equipped PayPass terminals. The cards will be produced at Gemplus’ recently enhanced card manufacturing facility in Pennsylvania.
3
news
in brief • VeriFone has completed a fast track Chip and PIN migration for UK travel firm Thomas Cook using the EMV pre-approved Ocius solution from Commidea. The Ocius solution is based on VeriFone’s Omni 3750 and SC 5000 secure consumer-facing device and will be installed in 600 Thomas Cook branches. The Ocius application has been designed to run on a range of VeriFone IPenabled products and is capable of supporting Chip and PIN and/or signature verification. • Moroccan oil company, Afriquia, has taken delivery of smart cards from Axalto’s Java Palmera line for its private payment system. It is claimed to be the first implementation of a private payment programme using Java-based cards by an oil company in Africa. Afriquia issues the smart card as a proprietary charge card that lets its business customers pay for, manage and control all fuel and service expenses for their vehicle fleets and employee owned cars. Under the programme, the cards can also be used to pay for road tolls and related services, such as car repairs, at Afriquia’s partners. • Shere, a UK supplier of self-service ticket machines, has chosen Hypercom to provide its technology for unattended ticketing machines at UK railway stations. Under the terms of the initial US$1 million agreement, Hypercom will provide Shere with an off-the-shelf EMV and Visa PED-approved chip and PIN-based credit and debit card payment solution that integrates directly into Shere’s hardware. The Hypercom self-serve card payment solution includes Hypercom’s K1100 keypad and display device and Optimum H2200 Motorized Magtek card reader. Hypercom has supplied several hundred units that have already been incorporated into Shere’s existing railway installations, eliminating the need to replace ticketing equipment to accommodate the new card payment system. • The Smart Card Alliance has formed a healthcare council to promote the adoption of smart cards in US healthcare organisations. This initiative comes as smart card technology is increasingly being used in healthcare applications to enable secure access to patient information to improve care and administration. The council will be managed by a steering committee made up of participants from across the healthcare and smart card industry and one of its initial projects will be to examine current implementations. The council will also describe the benefits and best practices for smart card deployment in various healthcare environments and it will seek partnerships with standards-setting groups and other organisations who aim to achieve common standards for electronic medical records.
4
than the central database, that is used for verification of the passenger’s identity in the trial. To use the system the passenger places their smart card in front of a reader positioned by the two entry points. This opens one of the doors to the verification booth, which closes once the passenger has entered. The customer then places one of their two registered fingerprints onto the biometric reader. If the fingerprint matches that stored on the card, the exit door opens, allowing the passenger to pass through. If it fails, a side door is activated requiring the passenger to use the traditional security clearance procedure. While the programme has the potential to raise privacy concerns, it was given a boost following approval by France’s data protection body, the National Commission for Informatics and Liberty (CNIL). CNIL said the scheme was acceptable due to its voluntary nature. At the end of the project all data stored by the border police are to be destroyed. Participants in the programme also have the right to access or correct their personal data, as well as the right to withdrawal from the programme at any time.
emv
Italy takes bulk delivery of EMV cards Italy has taken delivery of its first mass shipment of EMV smart cards. French smart card manufacturer Gemplus announced that it is supplying the more than one million smart payment cards to Setefi – the card processing business of Italian banking group, Intesa which is one of the largest in Italy. EMV migration is still largely in its pilot stages in the region but the migration process is expected to ramp up in the second half of 2005. Setefi claims it is the first bank to deliver mass volumes of cards to the market. The order will strengthen Gemplus’ position in the financial sector in Southern Europe. By the end of June 2005, the supplier had delivered 500,000 cards to Setefi, where the personalisation process is carried out. The cards are intended for credit and debit payment applications, as well as for Intesa Group’s specific payment application, Moneta. The cards will be produced at Gemplus’ specialised European PVC manufacturing facility in Havant, UK. Contact: Steve Lacourt at Gemplus Financial Services Business Unit, Tel: +32 2 711 48 20, Fax: +32 (0) 2 725 14 60, Email: [email protected]
company news
Record results for Orga’s banking unit ORGA Kartensysteme’s banking unit has posted record half-year shipments to the financial community, delivering more cards in the first six months of this year than it shipped in all of 2004. The company said that efforts to revamp its product portfolio, plus the reorganization of its worldwide production facilities, enabled the banking unit to ship more than 30 million cards by the end of June 2005, compared to 24 million cards for the whole of 2004. As part of Orga’s strategy to shift from a technology driven company to a service driven enterprise, several decisive actions were undertaken in 2004 and are now paying off. One crucial factor was to completely reposition ORGA’s financial services product portfolio to become a lean, but competitive, EMV smart card portfolio. Another important step was the reorganisation of ORGA’s international production portfolio. It now has locations worldwide in Brazil, Germany, Russia, USA and Asia, as well as strategic partnerships with international bureaus such as FDI in the UK. Contact: Daniela Koch at Orga Kartensysteme, Tel: +49 52 51 8892808, email: [email protected]
java card
Java Card sales to accelerate It took 10 years to ship the first billion Javabased smart cards, but according to Olivier Piou, CEO of French smart card manufacturer Axalto the next billion will take less than three years. Piou made the prediction at the recent JavaOne conference in the USA, where he was interviewed on stage by Scott McNealy, chairman and CEO of Sun Microsystems, as part of a demonstration to highlight how Java is now permeating so many areas of society. Java Card is predominantly used in SIM cards for mobile phones (with 42% of SIM cards shipped with the technology last year, according to industry estimates), but Piou pointed to various other exciting areas where the technology is being used. “We have just shipped some two million cards to Puerto Rico for use in its health programme, in order to improve the distribution of healthcare and benefits for poor people,” Piou commented, and added that the new ePassport market is also
Card Technology Today July/August 2005