Meanwhile, Gemplus’ ‘Xpresso 128K SIM wasalso expected this Summer.

The race is now on to persuade the telecomsproviders that such functionality is worth theadditional price – believed to be around US$10,double that of a 64K card – although smart cardvendors claim that price is not a major factor foroperators, who may be able to recover the extracosts by increasing average revenue per user.

utilities

Smart cards aid waterdistributionThe Philippine Municipality of Ronda haslaunched a solar powered, prepaid municipalwater distribution system using smart cards asthe basis for payment. The new smart-card-based system works in a similar manner to aprepaid phone card and offers the communityclean, reliable drinking water. It also eradicateshistorical problems that were associated withthe payment collection process.

WorldWater (Philippines), a subsidiary ofWorldWater Corp and the Municipality ofRonda, Cebu, Philippines, inaugurated thesystem at the end of September.

The Ronda system uses WorldWater’sproprietary AquaCard debit card system, whichoperates directly with its AquaMeter solarpumping stations throughout the community.The project was made possible by a commercialloan from the Philippine National Bank (PNB).

The AquaCard is inserted into the AquaMetersolar pumping station and the requested numberof litres of water is dispensed and the card isdebited. The card’s chip notifies the user when itneeds to be recharged at the community bank.

Funds collected by the community bank fromcustomers are turned over to the local government,which then repays the loans used to purchase theequipment and installation from WorldWater. Thelocal municipality also receives a percentage of thefunds for other infrastructure improvements.

WorldWater says that water bought from theAquaMeter is not only clean, but also significantlycheaper than water purchased from other sources.

Meanwhile in a separate announcement, QISystems, a provider of smart-card-based solutionsfor distributing bulk and ranch water, announced itis introducing new versions of its systems for waste-water control following a number of new orders.

The company received orders from AuroraBar Code Technologies for upgrades to thesmart card controlled bulk water distributionsystem installed for the City of Dawson Creek,British Columbia, Canada, and for a system forwastewater control. This upgrade will mark thefirst installation of the QI smart card system in awaste disposal application.

The Dawson Creek project has been operationalfor several years and will be modified with theinstallation of motorised card readers similar to thereaders used in banking ATM machines.

CCoonnttaacctt:: Debra Grady at WorldWater,Tel: +1 609818 0700

Steven Garman at QI,Tel: +1 604 248 2301, Fax: +1 604 248 2306

biometrics

Cross-credentialing testto beginA prototype system designed to recognisedissimilar ID credentials presented by visitorsto US military and defence industry facilitiesis to be tested following a contract award toNorthrop Grumman Corporation. Alongsidethe US DDeeffeennccee DDeeppaarrttmmeenntt’’ss DDeeffeennsseeMMaannppoowweerr DDaattaa CCeenntteerr (DMDC), NorthropGrumman’s Information Technology (IT) andMission Systems sectors will lead a teamdeveloping the Defense Cross-CredentialingIdentification System (DCIS).

The system is not designed to replace existingsecurity systems. Rather, the system, which willuse a livescan device to capture and verify twofingerprint images, will accept and processcredentials from all participating federated DCISagencies and contractors. This includes the smartcards that have been issued under the Departmentof Defense’s Common Access Card as well as otherstandardised IDs in use at the agencies andcontract sites participating in the prototype test.

Northrop Grumman will run initial tests atselected Defense Department facilities andcompany facilities as well as at Wright PattersonAir Force Base, Ohio, and Kirtland Air ForceBase, New Mexico. The pilot is expected to startin October 2003 and last until March next year.

Other players involved in the test include theFederated Electronic Government Coalition,SRA International, EDS, and BearingPoint.

The longer term vision is to allow not onlyphysical access but also verification of identityfor various transactions.

CCoonnttaacctt:: Juli Ballesteros at Northrop Grumman IT,Tel: +1 703 713 4675, email:juli.ballesteros@ngc.com

leisure

British Museum’s smartideaThe British Museum in London has adoptedsmart card technology to assist service deliveryand enhance the visitor experience. As part ofits Compass project, the museum is using a

6Card Technology Today October 2003

news

• A large, but unnamed, clearing bank in theUK has signed a contract to use Intercede’sedefice smart card and identity managementsystem to manage the issuance of Identrus-enabled smart cards and associated digitalcertificates to selected customers. Thecontract, with a committed first year value of£300,000, will be delivered within six monthsof contract award.

• Infineon Technologies has said that itexpects the global market for semiconductorsto expand 18% in 2004, following growth of11% this year. This rise is fuelled by growth inthe Asia–Pacific region and an improvingworld economy. Infineon believes that themarket will reach US$184 billion in 2004from US$156 billion in 2003.

• Cubic Corporation and LaserCardSystems Corporation, a wholly ownedsubsidiary of Drexler TechnologyCorporation, have developed a new type ofsmart card that combines contactless smartcard and optical memory technologies tosupport biometric identification. The nextstep is to offer this product to the UnitedStates Government for evaluation as anenhanced product candidate for the USVISIT market. The contactless portion of thenew hybrid card contains a computer chipand radio antenna and operates much thesame way as Cubic’s transit smart cards. Theoptical memory stripe provides goodcounterfeit resistance, automatic cardauthentication and high capacity securestorage for multiple biometric images.

• Schlumberger Smart Cards & Terminalshas obtained Visa PED (PIN Entry Device)certification for its range of MagIC X1000mobile/portable terminals and its MagIC5100 desktop terminal. This follows PEDapproval for the supplier’s MagIC 1800multilane terminal in May last year. VisaInternational has set January 2004 as thedeadline for compliance with the PEDstandards, after which banks deployingproducts without PED approval will be liablefor any fraudulent transaction occurring dueto PIN security being compromised at pointof sale. In addition, Visa has successfullyevaluated the Schlumberger MagIC X1000range and the MagIC 5100 terminal toensure their compliance with the Triple DES(Digital Encryption Standard) set by theinternational standards organisations ISOand ANSI.

in brief