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Snapshots of Smart Card Applications |
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Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency Norwich, England |
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Smart card technology provides real opportunities to improve delivery of public services and reduce administrative cost. The number of smart card schemes in both the public and private sectors has increased over the last 5 years to a level that indicates that smart card technology has finally come of age. The key changes that have allowed an increase in the number of applications are developments in standards and reductions in the cost of the technology to a level that begins to support a robust business case. There is, of course, a long way to go before the cost of technology is at a level that will result in widespread use of the technology in preference to established card technology such as magnetic stripe. Business requirements may not necessarily support introduction of the technology; however, there is scope for many public sector organisations and governments to implement smart cards. Many successful applications are in place and serve as examples for those public sector organisations that may be considering the technology. More than 50 public sector smart card schemes are in use throughout the world. The majority are small-scale pilots at the state/local government level. There are few federal/central government initiatives and no international ones. This article provides some insight into how the public sector is using smart cards.
Smart cards are being used successfully to store patient data records. A majority of the applications can be found in Europe, where the technology has achieved greater acceptance. Perhaps the most established and best documented application of a smart patient data card is the Santal smart health card, which is being used in the Saint-Nazaire region of France. More than 60,000 cards have been issued to almost a quarter of the population of the region. The patient card is a multifunctional card that is used to store four types of information: administrative (identity, insurance, entitlements), medical history, biological (blood details) and pharmaceutical (current treatment and previous prescriptions). The system allows secure communication between patients and healthcare professionals and enables a more comprehensive exchange of healthcare information and a simplification of administrative procedures. A similar application is being piloted in the Litomercie region of the Czech Republic, where 10,000 citizens will be issued PIN-protected patient data cards. The card is being tested because the paper-based system held limited information that was frequently inaccurate, labor-intensive to update, and wide open to abuse. The Czech Government also hopes that the card will rationalize the current system, where multiple insurers issue cards to patients. If the trial is successful it is likely that the Czech Government will rollout 10 million cards by the end of next year. Other notable applications can be found in Quebec province, Canada, and Lisbon, Portugal.
Smart cards are being used effectively in closed environments, such as university campuses and schools. York and Exeter Universities are the most notable examples in the United Kingdom. Both have issued students with multifunction smart identity cards that include electronic purse applications. The technology being used is based upon that used in the UK Mondex electronic cash trial. The University of Michigan, in the United States and Twente and Gronigen Universities in the Netherlands have taken their applications one step further and provided an interface to services outside the university campuses. In Michigan, students may use their cards to purchase goods from participating city retailers, whereas students in the Netherlands can use their cards to pay for travel on public transport. A number of other universities around the world operate smart identity card schemes, including the University of Newcastle, Australia and the University of Barcelona, Spain.
Smart card technology, particularly contactless smart cards, is ideally suited to mass transit applications. These cards enable ticketless travel, which can lead to faster passenger boarding and reduce cash transactions on buses and trains. Many of the applications are administered at state or local authority level. The world's largest and most sophisticated application of contactless smart cards in automatic fare collection can be found in Hong Kong. Once fully implemented, 2.4 million passengers per day will be able to use rechargeable contactless cards to pay for journeys on buses, the ferries, and trains. The cards potentially can be used in other applications such as retailing, parking and telecommunications. Many cities throughout the world including Los Angeles, Paris, Seoul, Tampere (Finland) and Sydney have similar but less advanced applications.. In the UK, London Transport is currently going through a procurement exercise that may lead to the introduction of contactless smart cards on London buses. There are also a number of small-scale trials underway at local authority levels in the UK and other European countries that enable customers to use smart cards to pay for parking.
As a result of the Information Society Pilot Project initiatives, many governments have made commitments to greater electronic delivery of services. Smart card technology is one way through which services can be securely delivered to citizens. While many governments at the central level are aware that smart card technology can provide a means to deliver services electronically, only a handful have actually implemented it. Arguably, the most innovative use of smart cards by a government can be found in Spain, where 400,000 hybrid cards containing both an integrated circuit and a magnetic stripe (the magnetic stripe is used for compatibility with another project) have been issued to citizens in Cordoba, Montilla, and Lucena as part of a trial of a benefit-payment scheme which also incorporates biometrics (fingerprints). The card is used to identify the holder and enable the payment of welfare benefits. The card is not used to hold a great deal of personal information but does act as a series of personal keys that enable card holders to access government databases. The provision of fingerprints is optional, but the Spanish government decided to limit access to general information and refuse access to personal information to those people who were unwilling to provide a fingerprint. Fingerprints are stored only on the card itself and not on a central database. Over the next few years, Spain plans to implement 3,000 self-service kiosks and over 20,000 LAN PCs for health management in all health centres. By the year 2000, it plans to have rolled out the card to the whole country. This would amount to almost 40 million cards and 6,000 centres where the card could be used. The Mexican government has issued more than 2,000,000 smart cards to poor families. The cards are used to store entitlements of basic foodstuffs and are meant to eliminate the considerable, fraud encountered with the paper-based system. The smart card readers are able to store a breakdown of daily transactions and store a blacklist of card holders that have abused the system. An electronic benefit transfer scheme is being implemented across the state of Ohio by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Smart cards containing credits have replaced food stamps. The smart card is, in effect, an electronic purse that contains credits that can be exchanged for groceries in shops. Plans call for extending the scheme to include payment of benefits to single mothers and children.
Smart cards can be sufficiently secure to serve as official "documents" of entitlements. For example, the Government of Argentina recently introduced the first smart driving license in the province of Mendoza. Mendoza has a high level of road accidents, driving offenses, and a poor record of recovering outstanding fines. The smart licenses keep an up-to-date record of driving offenses and unpaid fines. They also store personal information, license type and number, and a photograph of the holder. Emergency medical information like blood type, allergies, and biometrics (fingerprints) can be stored on the chip if the cardholder wishes. The Argentina government anticipates that this new system will help to recover more than $10 million per year in fines.
In many ways, a smart multifunction national citizen card or identity card can be seen as an integral part of electronic government service delivery in the information society. Yet many attempts to implement such cards have been unsuccessful. South Korea is the latest country to face problems. A small-scale trial involving 5,000 citizens took place last year in which a multifunction 8Kb smart card was used as a driving license, national identity card, pensions card, and medical insurance card. Korea planned to issue the card to all citizens aged 17 years or older by 1999. However, pressure from citizens and lobby groups concerned with privacy issues has delayed the project. Concerns from citizens over privacy issues led the Australian government to scrap similar plans several years ago. More recently, the Danish government also scrapped its plans to implement a smart multifunctional citizen card due to the perceived lack of technical specifications and national and international standards regarding digital signatures and cryptography. Until an established and successful application has been implemented, many governments are likely to be watching developments closely and proceeding with extreme caution.
The future of smart card technology remains bright. Applications are likely to increase in both the private and public sectors. Central/federal government applications are likely to emerge more slowly than local/state/county government applications due to the different kinds of services they each provide. Generally speaking, central/federal government services tend to require greater levels of security, are more sensitive to privacy issues, and are more difficult and costly to deliver. Nonetheless, they would appear to have a greater need for smart card technology. 'The Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency (CCTA), an agency of the U.K. Government, provides the public sector with advice and guidance on technology, including smart cards. It has produced a smart card information pack entitled "Smart Cards: Opportunities and Uses," which includes a publication, six supporting case studies, and a standards briefing. Also available on diskette or CD-ROM is "Get Smart," an illustrative and interactive guide to smart card technology. For information on purchasing these products
or services, contact the CCTA Information Centre Library on email:
info@ccta.gov.uk
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