news
Memory %Change Microprocessor
Telecom 440
Financial services-Retail-Loyalty 30
Government- Healthcare 2753
Transport 100
Pay TV 0 -
Corporate Security 10
Others 10
Total 865
3 Including 250 Mu forecasted for the Chinese ID Card
Figure 2 - 2007 Global Shipment Forecast (Millions of Units- Mu)
Transport
Eurosmart noted that numerous major world
cities introduced smart cards into their public
transport infrastructure, such as Mexico, New
York, Seoul. This adds to other major cities such
as Paris and London, which have already adopted
the technology.
healthcare
Smarter healthcare for
Germany
The German government’s plans to launch
one of the most extensive e-health projects
in the world is moving steadily forward. The
German system, which aims to reduce costs
and ensure that services and benefits are better
delivered to citizens, will involve 80 million
patients, 350,000 doctors and dentists, 2,000
hospitals and 22,000 pharmacies.
Gemalto is the latest smart card manufacturer
to announce its involvement in the initiative,
its products having become fully compliant
with the latest specifications from Gematik, the
organisation in charge of defining and approving
the healthcare infrastructure.
Gemalto has received orders to supply and
personalise patient cards for the Bavaria, Baden-
Württenberg, North Rhine Westphalia and
Saxony regions. The first trial phase – involving
70,000 cards in seven regions – began in
December 2006. A larger-scale experiment
involving 300,000 cards is due to start in 2007,
which will be followed by mass deployment.
The German authorities are implementing
this new infrastructure based on high-end
microprocessor cards to provide better quality of
service to insurance beneficiaries while increasing
the security of access to personal data.
Authorised healthcare professionals will be
able to read the patient’s personal information
only if he or she consents by entering the card’s
PIN into the system. For insurance funds, the
Card Technology Today November/December 2006
% Change
-14% 2150 19%
0% 480 20%
53% 140 55%
-29% 30 20%
60 -
0% 20 - develop and promote interoperable specifications
0% 15 - for the entire smart card infrastructure.
-2% 2895 20%
deployment of this new generation of health
cards will significantly trim administrative and
operational costs.
In separate announcement, Giesecke &
Devrient (G&D) announced it has supplied
public health insurer Deutsche Angestellten
Krankenkasse (DAK) with patient data cards,
equipped with personalised certificates. The cards
will initially be issued by DAK in the northern
city of Flensburg, before being deployed to other
regions. According to Hans Wolfgang Kunz,
member of the G&D Management Board and
Group Executive for Government Solutions:
“Giesecke & Devrient is the first manufacturer
to be delivering a full version of the electronic
health care card.”
Sagem Orga, meanwhile, announced that
it has passed gematik’s specifications for its
electronic health card (eGK). Passing this test is
the prerequisite for shipping cards to the pilot
regions.
Smart cards and card terminals from
Sagem Orga will be deployed in initial pilot
regions including Schleswig-Holstein, Saxony,
Wolfsburg, Trier and Bochum/Essen, the
company claims.
epassport
US ePassport project
orders millions of inlays
Smartrac, a supplier of inlays for passports
and credit cards with an integrated contactless
chip and an antenna, claims to have obtained
the first major order to supply several million
ePassport inlays for the United States’ ePass
project in 2006/2007.
The order, placed by Infineon Technologies,
is the most significant order in the high-security
RFID inlay industry to date, the company says,
as the US programme is currently the world’s
largest ePass project with a potential volume of
13 to 18 million passports per year.
in brief
• International standards body, GlobalPlatform,
has announced that e-security solutions provider,
Watchdata, has become the latest company to
join its expanding member base which aims to
Watchdata joins the consortium as an Observer
Member. In this capacity, Watchdata will be able
to closely monitor the discussions and output
of all GlobalPlatform technical committees
and will join other member organizations by
participating in GlobalPlatform’s Advisory
Council.
• NFC technology has been successfully piloted
by the city of Oulu, Finland as part of the
Europe-wide SmartTouch project. The project,
implemented by ToP Tunniste and VTT
Technical Research Centre of Finland, consists
of 21 partners from 8 European countries. In
Oulu, participants in the scheme included the
elderly, who were given Nokia NFC-enabled
mobile phones to order meals, and the city’s
sport and education departments, which used
NFC-enabled phones to provide access to public
facilities.
• Gemalto has launched a banking microprocessor
card to perform multiple types of Visa payments:
contact EMV (Europay MasterCard Visa),
EMV-based contactless and magnetic stripe
data contactless. The new card from Gemalto
can also host additional applications, such
as transportation, access control and loyalty,
allowing banks to offer a wide range of services
to their customers. The Gemalto card is the
first contactless product that meets Visa’s global
contactless specification for interoperability and
will be available in January 2007.
• Siam City Bank, one of Thailand’s largest
financial institutions, has selected Chan
Wanich Security Printing and Giesecke &
Devrient to provide a solution for the migration
of its banking cards to the EMV standard.
G&D’s EMV personalization solution Universal
Production Platform (UPP) software was used,
supporting a selection of chip platforms. The first
Visa and MasterCard EMV cards were issued to
the bank’s customers in early November.
• Mobinil, a leading mobile operator in
Egypt, has placed a landmark order for SIM
cards from Sagem Orga. Mobinil, part of
the Orange Group, services more than 8.1
million subscribers and has placed an order
for approximately 1 million SIM cards.
Egypt’s mobile telecommunications market
was privatized in 1997 and since then rapid
growth rates have been seen with the market
experiencing a growth of 84% last year alone.
5