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In this issue:
From Randy Vanderhoof, Acting President
Dear Members,
In recent weeks, our Alliance organization has had some
great successes. The terrific work of our Secure Personal
ID Task Force -- co-chaired by Cathy Medich, Bill Holcombe,
and Donna Farmer, with input from 25 volunteers from 17 different
Alliance member organization -- produced an Alliance white
paper that is now in the hands of many of the policy makers
evaluating ID initiatives at the federal level. Our Education
Institute completed the production of the Smart Cards 101
- Introduction to Smart Cards courseware on CD-ROM and distributed
free copies to each of our Principal members. In February,
the EI also conducted its inaugural Smart Cards 201 course
which provides advanced business applications and technologies
education for EI attendees. Our February meeting in Austin
that focused on Secure Personal Identification and Next Generation
Payment Technologies was among the best-attended and best-received
in recent years. Although we all missed the snow and the scenery
of Salt Lake City this year, our hosts at the SchlumbergerSema's
corporate campus made us all feel welcome and provided our
membership with a fantastic facility and great Texas-style
food and entertainment.
Recent weeks also brought major changes to the Alliance management.
Early this month Donna Farmer resigned her position as Alliance
President and CEO to found a new company dedicated to secure
personal ID and authentication. She will continue to support
the work of the Alliance as Special Advisor to the Board.
Donna has been a loyal and dedicated leader of our efforts
for many years and her contributions will truly be missed.
In addition, Donna Carlucci will also be leaving the Alliance
in March to pursue other interests. We all wish both Donna's
success in their future endeavors. In the interim, I will
assume the responsibilities of Acting President as the Alliance
Board evaluates options for the future. I have been involved
as a consultant to the Alliance staff and board since January
and this coupled with my experience as a longtime member and
active participant in the Alliance prepares me well for this
new role.
My goals are to ensure that you see nothing but improvement
in the level of service you receive during the transition.
We have engaged the capable services of CMA, an association
management firm, to provide administrative support for the
Alliance. Bob Johnston and his staff are ready to serve you
and support any operational services you may have. The phone
numbers have not changed, although the direct lines to the
New York office will no longer be staffed.
We are looking forward to two major upcoming Alliance events.
In April, our participation at the CardTech/SecurTech show
in New Orleans from April 23 -25 will bring outstanding recognition
of our group's industry contributions. The Alliance will be
awarding its annual OSCA award for the outstanding smart card
application of the year at this event. Remember to submit
your nominations on the Alliance web site. In June, we will
host a meeting in Washington DC to focus attention on the
utilization of smart cards within government agencies and
programs. The program will focus on technology options and
implementation strategies for large-scale secure identification
programs, feature advances in government interoperability
standards, and highlight successful rollouts. We will announce
the date and location shortly. I hope to see many of you at
both of these upcoming events. Please contact me to discuss
ways that I might better prepare the Alliance to help address
your company's specific objectives.
Sincerely,
Randy Vanderhoof
Acting President
Smart Card Alliance
The state of New Mexico's Motor Vehicles Division
is progressing with a plan to issue a smart card-based drivers
license to its residents. The plan would allow individuals
to choose the applications to be loaded to the multifunction
chip. A mid-month meeting is planned to provide details to
potential partners and vendors.
Welcome Real-time and Cyberpro Technologies
have merged to form a new company called Welcome. France-based
Welcome Real-time has provided smart card loyalty systems
to companies worldwide while Cyberpro has focused on Canadian
clients with its loyalty programs. Cyberpro's CEO, Daniel
Tardif, will lead the North American efforts for Welcome but
the new company will be headquartered in Aix-en-Provence.
Smart card integrator, Cybermark, announced a corporate
restructuring in an effort to better focus on its core markets
of higher education, automotive industries, and gift cards.
At the same time, company Vice Chairman Bill Norwood announced
that he has resigned his position and will leave the company
to pursue other opportunities.
The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority
has selected Cubic Transportation Systems Inc. to install
the a smart card fare collection system within the city's
transit system. The $84 million project will provide contactless
smart card payments on bus and light rail lines by 2003.
Delta Air Lines is piloting a new smart card system
at Gatwick Airport in London. The card improves security and
expedites check-in processes. The system utilizes a digitized
fingerprint stored on the chip and then verified at check-in
to authenticate passengers. The system was developed by ICTS
Europe Holdings B.V. of Amsterdam.
If you have company news that you would like to share,
please send it to info@smartcardalliance.org.
First Data Corp. announced that Tower Records has selected
their ValueLink(R) service to manage marketing, management
and implementation of the Tower Records gift card program.
Established three years ago, the program operates in Tower
Records' 104 U.S. retail locations, as well as through the
retailer's website and 800-number sales service. The program
offers both fixed denomination and open-ended cards.
Atmel Corp. recently announced the availability of
a new in-circuit emulator ICE50 that supports new members
of the megaAVR and tinyAVR 8-bit Flash microcontrollers. ICE50
is designed to be an expandable debug platform that can be
modified to support new AVR devices as they are released.
The ICE50 emulates all analog and digital peripherals and
debugs all instructions and features in real time. It enables
users to set an unlimited number of breakpoints. In addition
to traditional instruction breakpoint, ICE50 has data breakpoints
that stop emulation when a certain parameter is in the system.
The ICE50 is available now with a 2-4 week lead-time.
SCM Microsystems, Inc. announced that it has shipped
an additional 85,000 smart card readers to the U.S. Army as
part of the Department of Defense's (DoD) Common Access Card
(CAC) program. This follows an initial shipment of 50,000
readers for the initiative in November 2001. The SCM reader
offering gives U.S. Army personnel a single solution for multiple
security measures, ranging from physical identification at
mess halls to restricted access into buildings and over networks.
SCM supplies the U.S. Army with smart card readers through
its partner, Northrop Grumman Information Technology.
Gemplus announced the launch of its "EMV Prime" suite
of solutions. "EMV Prime" comprises solutions catered toward
financial institutions as a simple and cost-effective path
for achieving EMV compliance. Solutions include best-practice
implementation methodology, optimization tools, pre-integrated
hardware and software, smart cards and card issuing services.
ACIWorldwide and Giesecke & Devrient GmbH (G&D)
have announced a partnership to advance the worldwide migration
to smart card technology. The two will work together to help
financial institutions and other businesses launch and manage
smart card programs. G&D is a supplier of e-payment smart
cards that operate on a number of platforms including STARCOS(R),
MULTOS(TM) and Java(TM). ACI provides the ACI Smart Chip Manager(TM),
an integrated application that controls the lifecycle of smart
cards and the applications that reside on them, including
issuance and post application loads in the field. The system
allows seamless and easy configuration of newly issued cards,
applications and card products.
Secure Personal ID Task Force Update
The Smart Card Alliance Secure Personal ID Task Force
released an update to the white paper, "Secure Personal Identification
Systems: Policy, Process and Technology Choices for a Privacy-Sensitive
Solution." The Smart Card Alliance encourages all members
to post the white paper on their web sites, to use the white
paper in their marketing efforts with potential customers
and to inform their Washington DC staffs of the paper to assist
them in presenting smart cards to government contacts. The
paper and associated FAQ are available for download from the
Alliance web site (www.smartcardalliance.org).
The Task Force is now developing the outline for a white paper
that presents the benefits of a combined smart card and biometric
secure ID system. If you are interested in participating in
the Secure Personal ID Task Force, please contact Cathy Medich
(cmedich @earthlink.net)
or Bill Holcombe (bill.holcombe
@gsa.gov), Task Force Co-Chairs.
Digital Security Initiative at CTST
Plan to attend the DSI-sponsored seminar, "Digital
Security with Smart Cards" at the upcoming Cardtech/Securtech
2002 conference in New Orleans, LA., Wednesday, April 24 from
8:30AM - 12:00 PM. The seminar will focus on securing digital
networks with smart cards. Learn more about Microsoft support
for developing and deploying smart card solutions and hear
from commercial enterprises that are securing their networks
with smart cards. The top notch panel of speakers will include
a representative from Microsoft, and Nico Nissink, Program
manager for corporate PKI and smart card deployment at SchlumbergerSema.
Web Changes Coming
The secured members-only section of the Alliance website
is undergoing some important functional changes. Later this
month, members will be provided with a username and password
to enable access to the available documents and resources.
Member Renewals
The Alliance welcomes the following
new and returning members:
- Mag-Tek (Principal)
- Northrup Grumman (Principal)
- EDS (Principal)
- ACS (Principal)
- 3M Co. (Auditing)
- NTRU (Auditing)
- Identicard (Auditing)
- Singapore Economic Development Board (Government)
Below are some recent articles featuring the Smart Card
Alliance.
- RCR Wireless News, Denver, CO. February 4, 2002.
Smart cards may gain prominence in post-Sept.11 world,
by Elizabeth V. Mooney.
- Credit Card Management. February 2002 Volume 14/Number
12. Chip Cards Break Out of Their Shell.
- American Austin Statesman, Austin, TX. February
7, 2002. Time short for 'smart' Ids, expert says,
by Kirk Ladendorf.
- The Enterprise, Salt Lake City. February 4, 2002
White paper provides insight into accurate secure means
of protecting privacy.
- Electronic Engineering Times, Manhasset, NY. February
4, 2002. Smart-card makers: We are ready to meet new
security demands, by Charles J. Murray.
- Card Technology. February 2002. Do Analysts'
Numbers Add Up?, by Cathy Bowen.
- Federal Computer Week. January 31, 2001. Smart
card industry angles for ID, by Brian Robinson.
- The following article, Tracking U.S., by Carlene
Hempel, Raleigh News & Observer was covered in more
than 30 different publications.
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