Smartcard

T ST’s solutions based on smartcard encompass smartcards, mobile phone and contactless cards (RFID Mifare and NFC) technologies to develop applications such as access control, cryptographic applications, mobile wallet and ticketing.
SUMMARY ADVANTAGE
Secure applications
Integration with mobile phones
Contactless Technology
Mobile payments
Applications

Smartcards have several applications and they are used in many fields. A typical case of use is the use of smartcards as key in control access applications, where each user has his access permissions recorded in the card’s memory chip. In corporative areas, control access application can be combined with other applications such as rechargeable purse card (a smartcard that can be recharged and can be used to pay things, e.g. to pay the bus). Also the safe environment of the smartcard allows implementing safe cryptographic applications such as digital signature.

SIM cards of mobile phones are also smartcards, so the same applications previously mentioned can be implemented on a mobile phone and make use of the additional communication feature that cellular networks give us. Last generation mobile phones also have contactless cards technologies such as NFC, so applications such as mobile wallet that combine smartcard technologies, contactless card (NFC) and cellular communications can be incorporated. An example of advanced application that combines these technologies is ticketing, that is the mobile payment of public transport tickets in subways, buses and tramways.

References
Tarjeta UC

Founding partners of TST have wide experience in smartcards field, they have been working in this field since 1995, when they developed in collaboration with Banco Santander a smartcard for the University of Cantabria. Since then, the model implemented at the University of Cantabria has been the basis for more than 140 universities in Spain, Portugal and Latin America that have implemented smart card in their campuses.

In 2000 the OTTIUC (Observatorio Tecnológico de la Tarjeta Inteligente de la Universidad de Cantabria) was created, a consortium formed by the University of Cantabria, Banco Santander, Gemalto, MasterCard and Orange. The focus of the consortium is to explore the possibilities that new cards with multiple applications offer. The experimented technologies are:

  • Applet JavaCard WG10
  • Mobile technologies such as OTA, STK and SIM Browsing
  • Contactless technologies (RFID Mifare and NFC)