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] 

New Jersey Transit’s use of NFC payments with Google Wallet has been an “overwhelming and resounding success,” according to NJ Transit spokesman John Durson.

Introduced on the NJ Transit network in October 2011, Google Wallet enables riders to purchase tickets with the tap of an NFC-enabled phone at New York Penn Station, Newark Liberty Airport’s rail station and on 7 city bus lines.

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Romanian bank BRD, a unit of Société Générale, has selected Oberthur Technologies to supply multi-application payment cards. These cards have payment scheme applications, as well as the ability to host transport, access control, PKI or biometric apps.

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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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RIM has revealed a new NFC sharing app for BlackBerry handsets at BlackBerry World in Orlando, Fla.

According to Pocket-lint, BlackBerry Share enables users with NFC-enabled handsets to share apps with each other by simply tapping the two phones together. Once a connection has been made, each user will be presented with a list of apps the other user has downloaded from BlackBerry App World.

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Web designer and developer Gareth Wright has discovered security vulnerabilities in Facebook’s app for iOS and Android devices, reports MacRumors.com.

The flaw allows malicious users to access login credentials that are located in a .plist file connected to the app and use them to login to the stolen account on a different device.

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Calgary, Alberta is pushing forward with the anticipated summer launch of a new smart card payment system for public transit, according to the Calgary Herald.

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