- Email: [email protected]
German healthcard project selects Authentidate
news
in brief • Gemalto has signed an exclusive option agreement to purchase the remaining 50% stake of Gemplus Bank Note (GBN), a jointventure controlled equally by Gemalto and American BankNote. GBN, created in 1999, serves the largest Brazilian banks, which have recently accelerated their migration to EMV cards and are now generating strong demand for Gemalto’s products and services. • PrePay Technologies and LINK have launched a prepaid enterprise payroll card for UK businesses. The card has been developed by PrePay Technologies in consultation with its existing clients and various payroll agencies and is launched in conjunction with AVANTRA, the commercial managed service division of LINK. The Enterprise Payroll card is an alternative solution to cash or cheques for transferring funds to banked, un-banked and short term contract employees. It is claimed that benefits for employees in using the card include the potential reduction in cheque encashment costs and the ability to make electronic payments on the high street and access ATMs without the need to have a bank account or a credit history. Employees are able to withdraw cash at ATMs exhibiting the Maestro logo and can manage their accounts via the Internet and telephone. • MK Technology Group is to set up a smart card manufacturing facility in Ho Chi Minh City. The company, which supplies SIM cards and phone cards to major telecom companies in Vietnam, has been licensed to build a centre for research and manufacture of smart cards. MK Group currently has a manufacturing plant in the Quang Minh Industrial Park in the northern Vinh Phuc Province, which produces 50 million magnetic cards and 30 million chip cards. Besides local distribution, these cards are also shipped to the US, Singapore and Indonesia. Work on the VND32 billion (US$2.1 million) facility in the Saigon Hi-Tech Park is expected to begin in March and to be completed in December. • Silicon Storage Technology (SST) has announced an enhancement of the Keil PK51 (8051) Professional Developer’s Kit with extensive support for the SST Theseus Titanium smart card family. The Keil PK51 Professional Developer’s Kit now provides Theseus Titanium customers with a complete software development tool solution including the Keil 8051 C compiler and uVision3 IDE. Smart card software engineers are able to simulate their code using Keil’s PK51 Kit and then generate instant samples using the programmability of the Theseus Titanium devices.
4
settled a dispute over the use of certain patents related to RFID devices using wire-embedding technology. Under the terms of the agreement between the two companies, Assa Abloy assigns its ownership rights in around 70 patents to Smartrac. In return, Assa Abloy will receive a worldwide non-exclusive licence for the ongoing use of the patents. The dispute involved a method for embedding antenna wires in passport inlays during the production of security documents, such as ePassports. An inlay comprises a module with a smart card chip that is bonded to an antenna. The dispute had delayed Smartrac’s initial public offering of stock, and had also created some uncertainty in the ePassport world where Smartrac says it is involved in 70 of the 95 ePassport projects worldwide.
healthcare
German healthcard project selects Authentidate Authentidate International is to develop a Card and Application Management System (CAMS) for ISKV, a provider of healthcare information systems in Germany, and Deutsche AngestelltenKrankenkasse (DAK), the second largest health insurance company in Germany. With this project, DAK becomes a leading player in the nationwide introduction of the electronic health insurance card in Germany. During the project, DAK expects to issue more than six million smart cards. The introduction of the electronic health insurance card makes it possible to optimize processes and reduce costs. At the same time, insured persons benefit from better information networking and are served faster, more purposefully and cost-effectively. The CAMS will form the basis of the electronic health insurance card. ISKV was commissioned to implement various basic components for the extensive project. Authentidate is supporting ISKV on a number of fronts, particularly in connection with software development and special services required for the Card and Application Management System. DAK will operate its own Certificate Authority for the electronic health insurance card. In addition, the DAK Certificate Authority will provide the necessary certificates for the members’ health insurance cards and guarantee secure communication between patients, doctors, hospitals and health insurance companies. The CAMS will enable DAK to consolidate data and to manage members’ health insurance cards. The management of the members’ health insurance cards is the central component
for secure communication within the entire Germany-wide IT network infrastructure. Authentidate provides several scalability components for the CAMS as well as the necessary security requirements for DAK. Apart from the establishment of the Certificate Authority for card-to-card authentication, this also includes the implementation of a complete public key infrastructure for X.509 certificates, which also comprises the use of Authentidate’s own Online Certificate Status Protocol responder and validation server. With the aid of the Authentidate components, DAK can check whether the certificate of an insurance card is valid and whether the card was used lawfully during the visit to the doctor.
healthcare
Atmel delivers microcontrollers for French health card Chip manufacturer Atmel has delivered volume quantities of its AT90SC12836RCT secure microcontroller for the new generation Vitale 2 French National Health Card. The AT90SC12836RCT incorporates 36K bytes of EEPROM, 128K bytes of ROM program memory and 5K bytes of RAM on chip. The processor is based on Atmel’s secureAVR family which uses an 8/16-bit RISC core and the AdvX crypto accelerator for increased PKI performance and security. Sagem Defense Security’s smart cards business unit (now Sagem Orga Orga) selected Atmel’s secureAVR architecture in March 2004 for this contract. With more than 910 million claim forms produced yearly and over 225,000 health professionals using electronic transmission in France, the SESAM-Vitale system is constantly evolving. This evolution led to a new generation of cards: the Vitale 2, which allows practitioners to sign invoices during a consultation and securely access personal medical files. Access to these files are secured thanks to the increased PKI performance of the chip and its EAL4+ certification. Within this nationwide health insurance program, approximately 60 million Vitale 2 cards will be shipped to French citizens over the next four years. According to Michel Bartosik, EMEA business development manager for Atmel’s Secure Products Division: “After delivering over 50 million secure microcontrollers from the beginning of the Vitale 1 program, Atmel remains a major supplier of the Vitale French National Health Card…The Vitale 2 is the first card based on interoperability specifications in compliance with IAS (Identification,
Card Technology Today January 2007
in brief • Gemalto has signed an exclusive option agreement to purchase the remaining 50% stake of Gemplus Bank Note (GBN), a jointventure controlled equally by Gemalto and American BankNote. GBN, created in 1999, serves the largest Brazilian banks, which have recently accelerated their migration to EMV cards and are now generating strong demand for Gemalto’s products and services. • PrePay Technologies and LINK have launched a prepaid enterprise payroll card for UK businesses. The card has been developed by PrePay Technologies in consultation with its existing clients and various payroll agencies and is launched in conjunction with AVANTRA, the commercial managed service division of LINK. The Enterprise Payroll card is an alternative solution to cash or cheques for transferring funds to banked, un-banked and short term contract employees. It is claimed that benefits for employees in using the card include the potential reduction in cheque encashment costs and the ability to make electronic payments on the high street and access ATMs without the need to have a bank account or a credit history. Employees are able to withdraw cash at ATMs exhibiting the Maestro logo and can manage their accounts via the Internet and telephone. • MK Technology Group is to set up a smart card manufacturing facility in Ho Chi Minh City. The company, which supplies SIM cards and phone cards to major telecom companies in Vietnam, has been licensed to build a centre for research and manufacture of smart cards. MK Group currently has a manufacturing plant in the Quang Minh Industrial Park in the northern Vinh Phuc Province, which produces 50 million magnetic cards and 30 million chip cards. Besides local distribution, these cards are also shipped to the US, Singapore and Indonesia. Work on the VND32 billion (US$2.1 million) facility in the Saigon Hi-Tech Park is expected to begin in March and to be completed in December. • Silicon Storage Technology (SST) has announced an enhancement of the Keil PK51 (8051) Professional Developer’s Kit with extensive support for the SST Theseus Titanium smart card family. The Keil PK51 Professional Developer’s Kit now provides Theseus Titanium customers with a complete software development tool solution including the Keil 8051 C compiler and uVision3 IDE. Smart card software engineers are able to simulate their code using Keil’s PK51 Kit and then generate instant samples using the programmability of the Theseus Titanium devices.
4
settled a dispute over the use of certain patents related to RFID devices using wire-embedding technology. Under the terms of the agreement between the two companies, Assa Abloy assigns its ownership rights in around 70 patents to Smartrac. In return, Assa Abloy will receive a worldwide non-exclusive licence for the ongoing use of the patents. The dispute involved a method for embedding antenna wires in passport inlays during the production of security documents, such as ePassports. An inlay comprises a module with a smart card chip that is bonded to an antenna. The dispute had delayed Smartrac’s initial public offering of stock, and had also created some uncertainty in the ePassport world where Smartrac says it is involved in 70 of the 95 ePassport projects worldwide.
healthcare
German healthcard project selects Authentidate Authentidate International is to develop a Card and Application Management System (CAMS) for ISKV, a provider of healthcare information systems in Germany, and Deutsche AngestelltenKrankenkasse (DAK), the second largest health insurance company in Germany. With this project, DAK becomes a leading player in the nationwide introduction of the electronic health insurance card in Germany. During the project, DAK expects to issue more than six million smart cards. The introduction of the electronic health insurance card makes it possible to optimize processes and reduce costs. At the same time, insured persons benefit from better information networking and are served faster, more purposefully and cost-effectively. The CAMS will form the basis of the electronic health insurance card. ISKV was commissioned to implement various basic components for the extensive project. Authentidate is supporting ISKV on a number of fronts, particularly in connection with software development and special services required for the Card and Application Management System. DAK will operate its own Certificate Authority for the electronic health insurance card. In addition, the DAK Certificate Authority will provide the necessary certificates for the members’ health insurance cards and guarantee secure communication between patients, doctors, hospitals and health insurance companies. The CAMS will enable DAK to consolidate data and to manage members’ health insurance cards. The management of the members’ health insurance cards is the central component
for secure communication within the entire Germany-wide IT network infrastructure. Authentidate provides several scalability components for the CAMS as well as the necessary security requirements for DAK. Apart from the establishment of the Certificate Authority for card-to-card authentication, this also includes the implementation of a complete public key infrastructure for X.509 certificates, which also comprises the use of Authentidate’s own Online Certificate Status Protocol responder and validation server. With the aid of the Authentidate components, DAK can check whether the certificate of an insurance card is valid and whether the card was used lawfully during the visit to the doctor.
healthcare
Atmel delivers microcontrollers for French health card Chip manufacturer Atmel has delivered volume quantities of its AT90SC12836RCT secure microcontroller for the new generation Vitale 2 French National Health Card. The AT90SC12836RCT incorporates 36K bytes of EEPROM, 128K bytes of ROM program memory and 5K bytes of RAM on chip. The processor is based on Atmel’s secureAVR family which uses an 8/16-bit RISC core and the AdvX crypto accelerator for increased PKI performance and security. Sagem Defense Security’s smart cards business unit (now Sagem Orga Orga) selected Atmel’s secureAVR architecture in March 2004 for this contract. With more than 910 million claim forms produced yearly and over 225,000 health professionals using electronic transmission in France, the SESAM-Vitale system is constantly evolving. This evolution led to a new generation of cards: the Vitale 2, which allows practitioners to sign invoices during a consultation and securely access personal medical files. Access to these files are secured thanks to the increased PKI performance of the chip and its EAL4+ certification. Within this nationwide health insurance program, approximately 60 million Vitale 2 cards will be shipped to French citizens over the next four years. According to Michel Bartosik, EMEA business development manager for Atmel’s Secure Products Division: “After delivering over 50 million secure microcontrollers from the beginning of the Vitale 1 program, Atmel remains a major supplier of the Vitale French National Health Card…The Vitale 2 is the first card based on interoperability specifications in compliance with IAS (Identification,
Card Technology Today January 2007