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CHAPTER 3
SOME BASIC STANDARDS FOR SMART CARDS

The precursors to today’s smart cards were the plastic credit cards used as identity tokens in the retail financial marketplace. These tokens, when introduced, represented a significant improvement in the ability of merchants to accept payment in an abstract form (essentially “on credit”) from customers whose identity they could not personally vouch for. The credit card represented (and actually still does) a certification of identity and financial situation from an issuer functioning as a trust broker. (This concept of a trust broker is examined in more detail in Chapter 9, “Smart Cards and Security.”)

In the trust infrastructure provided by the credit card—although a merchant might not be inclined to extend credit to an unknown customer—it was reasonable for the merchant to trust the issuer of a credit card, in no small part because of the known financial strength of the issuer and financial agreements entered into when the merchant became “certified” to accept the (credit card) tokens of the card issuer.

As the convenience of credit cards became established and their use more accepted, it became highly desirable to achieve an unprecedented level of interoperability among cards from different issuers and transaction equipment from a variety of vendors in merchants’ stores around the world.

The start of the journey toward worldwide interoperability lay in the establishment of international standards regarding first the cards themselves, then the equipment that would work with them and with the environments in which they would be used. The venue of choice for establishing such standards is the International Standards Organization (ISO). In some fields of technical activity, the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) collaborates with the ISO in the development of standards. Similarly, in the United States, the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) functions as a primary standards setting body. In the following discussion, some standards are ISO standards and others are joint ISO/IEC/ANSI standards accepted by all three bodies.

This chapter and Chapter 4, “Smart Card Commands,” review some of the foundation standards on which smart cards are based. This is not an exhaustive review of the standards affecting smart cards or of the individual standards addressed. Rather, it is a moderately detailed overview of the characteristics of smart cards that are affected by standard specifications; it will give you the tools you need to identify the specific standards you can consult for a complete understanding.

ISO, IEC, and ANSI Standards for Cards

ISO/IEC (and in some instances, ANSI) standards have been established to fully describe plastic identification cards. The various standards have evolved over time and are found in a variety of ISO/IEC/ANSI classifications, the more pertinent of which are listed in Table 3.1.

Table 3.1. ISO standards pertaining to smart cards.
ISO/IEC Standard Title

ISO/IEC 7810—1995-08-15 Identification Cards—Physical Characteristics
ANSI/ISO/IEC 7811-1—1995: Part 1 Identification Cards—Recording Technique Embossing
ANSI/ISO/IEC 7811-2—1995: Part 2 Identification Cards—Recording Technique Magnetic Stripe
ANSI/ISO/IEC 7811-3—1995: Part 3 Identification Cards—Recording Technique Location of Embossed Characters on ID-1 Cards
ANSI/ISO/IEC 7811-4—1995: Part 4 Identification Cards—Recording Technique Location of Read-Only Magnetic Tracks—Tracks 1 and 2
ANSI/ISO/IEC 7811-5—1995: Part 5 Identification Cards—Recording Technique Location of Read-Write Magnetic Tracks—Track 3
ANSI/ISO/IEC 7812-1—1993 Identification Cards—Identification of Issuers Part 1: Numbering System
ANSI/ISO/IEC 7813—1995 Identification Cards—Financial Transaction Cards
ISO 7816-1 Identification Cards—Integrated Circuit(s) Cards with Contacts—Physical Characteristics
ISO 7816-2 Identification Cards—Integrated Circuit(s) Cards with Contacts — Dimensions and Location of the Contacts
ISO 7816-3 Identification Cards—Integrated Circuit(s) Cards with Contacts—Electronic Signals and Transmission Protocols
ISO 7816-3 Amendment 1 Protocol type T=1, Asynchronous Half Duplex Block Transmission Protocol
ISO 7816-3 Amendment 2 Revision of Protocol Type Selection
ISO 7816-4 Identification Cards—Integrated Circuit(s) Cards with Contacts—Interindustry Commands for Interchange
ISO 7816-5 Identification Cards—Integrated Circuit(s) Cards with Contacts—Number System and Registration Procedure for Application Identifiers
ISO 7816-6 Identification Cards—Integrated Circuit(s) Cards with Contacts—Interindustry Data Elements
ISO 1177—1985 Information Processing—Character Structure for Start/Stop and Synchronous Character-Oriented Transmission

Physical Characteristics of Identification Cards

A seminal specification that ultimately leads to smart cards is ISO/IEC 7810: Identification Cards—Physical Characteristics. This standard defines nominal physical characteristics for three types of identification cards, labeled ID-1, ID-2, and ID-3. Card type ID-1 deals with the generally accepted size and shape of a “credit card” or “smart card” and is the primary focus of this discussion. The ID-2 and ID-3 card types are simply larger sizes, but with the same physical characteristics as ID-1 card types.


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