By the end of 2001 smart cards are going to be part of the everyday lives of people living in the UK, and a study commissioned by Compagnie des Machines Bull SA shows attitudes are changing in regard to their implementation. Although there have been a couple of smart card trials in the UK, the rest of Europe is well ahead of the UK and the US in terms of acceptance of the new technology and its implementation. But a report conducted by Gallup for Bull in the UK, found 64% of the 1,000 people surveyed are comfortable about the concept of using electronic money via a smart card. Bull anticipates the shift to smart cards in the UK will start in the next 18 months, and by 2001, all bank cards will have been converted. Bull is a strong believer in the electronic purse, whereby in theory the bearer need carry no cash with them at all. The electronic purse will either be charged up with ‘real’ money and used in a similar way to the telephone card, or users will be able to insert their card into a cash machine and get money from their bank account put straight on to the card. Plans and implementations such as these, of course bring with them the usual issues and questions of theft and security. But Bull is convinced that electronic money will cut down on fraud and muggings, reducing crime levels. The cards planned at the moment will be protected by a personal identification number, or PIN, but plans are under way to introduce biometric security methods. Bull has discovered that people in the UK are reluctant to be identified via a finger print because they associate it with criminality, and instead favor retinal identification. Users will be required to have a photograph of their eye taken before they are issued with their smart cards. But reports this week suggest there are problems with this kind of identification, because technology is not yet advanced enough to tell whether the eye used for identification belongs to a dead or alive person, reminiscent of the movie Demolition Man when Wesley Snipes escapes from prison by plucking the eyeballs from a security guard and mounting them on a biro, then pointing them at the biometric scanner. But as Bull points out, this kind of ID is a little way off yet. Bull is convinced that smart cards are the way forward – but then it probably would as it owns most of the patents relating to them – and it has come up with its own security system to prevent electronic fraud over the Internet. Bull’s business development manager for security solutions, Alan Laird explains that the company has come up with CSET; Chip Secure Electronic Transactions. The system has been developed in conjunction with French bank card scheme operator Carter Bank and EuropeA. Laird said there are problems with the Secure Electronic Transaction protocol, most simply because the user has to have secure software connected to a personal computer in order to access the security system. CSET is based on the same key principle as SET (CI No 3,336), but instead of using software on a PC or alike, users connect to a tamper proof, traceable personal terminal which will be able to be used with set top boxes, telephones, network computers and the conventional PC. A safe pad requires the user to enter their numerical or biometric PIN. The system then shows how much the user has to pay. The user then authorizes the transaction via an encrypted message that comes directly from the chip in the smart card. Laird believes the PIN is the safest way to ensure against theft and fraud and believes the magnetic debit and credit card no longer has a future.
