Why are smart cards better than other ID token technologies?
Smart cards are widely acknowledged as one of the most secure and reliable forms of an electronic identification (ID) token. A smart card includes an embedded integrated circuit chip that can be either a microcontroller chip with internal memory or a secured memory chip alone. The card communicates with a reader either through direct physical contact or with a remote contactless electromagnetic field that energizes the chip and transfers data between the card and the reader. With an embedded microcontroller, smart cards have the unique ability to store large amounts of data, carry out their own on-card functions (e.g., data storage and management, encryption, decryption, and digital signature calculations) and interact intelligently with a smart card reader. A smart card ID can combine several ID technologies, including the embedded chip, visual security markings, magnetic stripe, barcode and/or an optical stripe. By combining these various technologies into a smart card ID token, the
