Smart card basics

You’ve decided that smart card issuance is right for your program. There are several components to consider.

Let’s look at some basic questions and fundamentals to help you make the right choice when building your smart card solution.

CONTACT

A contact card chip has electrical contact points, which are physically contacted by a device inside the reader. The chip stores memory such as card holder details, access credentials, etc.

Use cases: Credit and debit cards, logical access badges, secure network logon, digital signature, encryption of IT infrastructures, multipurpose payment and identification cards

CONTACTLESS

The contactless card contains a chip that is within the plastic layers of the card. For the card to be read, it must be held up to the exterior of a contactless reader at a certain distance.

Communication between the card and reader is facilitated by radio frequency (RFID). Encrypted and secure data is transferred between an antenna in the card and an antenna in the reader.

Use cases:Smart cards for building access (read-only), physical access, digital signature, encryption of IT infrastructures Industries:Public transit, retail, education, financial, identity authorization

HYBRID

A hybrid smart card is a card that has both a contact chip and an embedded antenna for contactless connections. This combination card offers both physical and logical access in the same card.

PROX CARDS

The proximity cards, or prox cards, are form of a contactless card that has a larger read range than a standard contactless smart card.

One common application is for a user to leave the card in their wallet and hold it up to the reader without removing the card. Proximity cards with a higher frequency are often called ultra high frequency cards, or UHF.

Which is Appropriate for My Application?

Perform a Secure Transaction
The transaction is enhanced through data encryption and authentication, which both safeguard the information encoded into the contact chip.

Why it’s important: Encrypted personal information is more difficult to breach than a magnetic stripe and can only be accessed using a PIN for that contact chip.

Secure logical access is done using contact form factor control using authentication in addition to encryption

Why it’s important: Using authentication and encryption customizes each card with a unique serial number. This reduces the risk of duplicated cards and information breaches.

Ability to add future applications or re-encode the smart card as the needs of the card change over time.

Why it’s important: As card users’ access levels change or additional information needs to be stored, the same card can be re-programmed for the creation of a multi-purpose card (depending on the amount of memory storage available on the existing chip)

Now that you know more about the types of smart cards that are offered, the next decision is what type of connection you will need to encode the chip. Entrust Datacard offers two types: single-wire and loosely coupled. What’s the difference?

Single-wire

The printer has one single connection to the PC or network for printing and SC encoding through the Ethernet connection. Commands sent from the application are “tunneled” through the printer connection to the coupler inside the printer.

Use cases: Typically used in education, the financial issuance of credit and debit cards, and digital enterprise credential issuance. Generally applied to larger-scale issuance programs requiring the networking of multiple printers to the same server.

Loosely coupled

The PC has two connections, one to the printer and another to the reader – each with a USB connection. The printer connection delivers commands for card movement, magnetic stripe operation, and printing.

The reader connection is exclusively designed for smart card commands, sent by a PC/SC interface independent from the printer driver. There must be a PC alongside each individual printer to which the reader is connected.

This solution is termed “loosely coupled” because the printer and reader connections operate independently.

Use cases: Generally applied to local issuance programs not requiring the use of printer by others that use the same network. However, the PC could be networked to access a central server for database connection

Source: Datacard