Identity, Security, Payments, Biometrics, Smart Cards and Authentication News

New apps on the way for CAC

Thursday, May 15, 2008

There will be additional applications coming to the U.S. Department of Defense’s Common Access Card, says Bob Gilson, management and program analyst at the DOD’s defense manpower data center, at the CTST Conference, May 13-15 in Orlando, Fla. He says the agency has issued 400,000 of the new PIV-compliant cards and will add new functionality to the IDs in the coming years.

Gilson’s charge was to find new applications for the card and some new applications will be tested soon, including an e-transit application. A transit e-purse will be tested in Salt Lake City in September and October. Instead of loading an applet on to the contactless portion of the CAC the card will act as a pointer. The card’s number will refer the transit system to a funding source, such as a bank account, Gilson says. If the test goes well the system could be running with the Washington Metro.


The DOD also wants to get rid of its different e-purse options and standardize on one application for the entire department, Gilson says. He expects that to take more than two years to implement.

The agency also will be removing magnetic stripes from the cards and replacing them with an optical character recognition zone like that found on passports. DOD is also removing any trace of Social Security numbers from the IDs. [end] 

The Smart Card Alliance Transportation Council has published a white paper examining how the transit industry can best make use of NFC technology.

“One of the major challenges facing transit agencies today is how to capitalize on the ever-growing popularity of mobile phones with a solid mobile strategy,” said Transportation Council Chairman Craig Roberts. “This white paper builds on the knowledge base developed in earlier white papers to foster a greater understanding of NFC technology, explain its role in the transit industry, and shed light on key issues facing the transit industry in developing a mobile strategy.”

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Sequent Software, a California-based provider of mobile NFC software, announced the launch of Core Card Services (CCS), a solution designed to enable any mobile app to seamlessly integrate NFC payments, ticketing, coupons, ID badge access and more.

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Cubic Transportation Systems, distributor of the electronic transit Clipper card, has responded to the recent news of a Ph.D. student in IT Security allegedly breaking the encryption in Clipper and similar transit cards.

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India transport operator Ahmedabad Janmarg Ltd. has launched a smart transit card for commuters traveling on the region’s bus system, according to ISO&Agent.

The agency began a six-month trial and August 2010 followed by a soft and silent launch in January 2012. The card is available now for a nonrefundable fee of 25 rupees ($.50 US cents) and allows commuters to travel for up to 100 minutes on one bus, for the minimum fare.

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Aconite has announced the release of its new Mobile Application Manager, a solution that enables application issuers, such as banks and transit operators, to install and manage the life-cycles of apps in an NFC-enabled mobile handset’s Secure Element.

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The upcoming Windows Phone 8 operating system, aka “Apollo,” will contain support for NFC, multicore processors, new screen resolutions, and removable microSD card storage, according to an exclusive video intercepted by PoketNow.

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