SCP Activity Report 2000

Responsible for the development and maintenance of a common Integrated Circuit (IC) Card platform for all mobile telecommunication systems, of the application independent specifications for the interface with terminal equipment and of IC Card standards for general telecommunications and high security applications.

ETSI Project Smart Card Platform (EP SCP) was set up in March 2000. Originally named ‘newSMG9’, it took over all the work of the Sub Technical Committee SMG9 of the former ETSI Technical Committee Special Mobile Group. It was renamed later in the year when all the remaining GSM application specific areas of work were transferred to the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP). This left EP SCP to concentrate on the task of creating a smart card platform for 2G and 3G mobile telecommunications on which other organizations can base their system specific applications. This will, in particular, allow users access to global roaming by means of their Smart Card, irrespective of the radio access technology used.

The platform specification will allow the introduction of true multi-application smart cards. To give just one example, customers will be able to use both a 3G and a banking application in parallel on the same card.

EP SCP is also responsible for developing standards for IC cards to secure financial transactions over mobile telecommunications systems (mobile commerce).

The Project made significant progress in its first few months, approving the Technical Specification which will form the backbone of the platform. The first in a series of specifications, it deals with the physical and logical characteristics of a smart card interface. The Technical Specification on administrative commands for smart cards was also revised to align with the platform specification for the smart card (UICC)/terminal interface, thus completing Release 99. To further the advancement of mobile commerce, agreement was reached on increasing the maximum value allowed for the power consumption of a UICC at low voltages, thus facilitating the use of co-processors to enable digital signatures.

Work in 2001 will focus on the Public Key Infrastructure and on enhancing the administration standard to include generic download of data independent of the transport mechanism. EP SCP will also be looking into deriving common requirements from the existing GSM smart card specifications such as the SIM Application Toolkit specification. This will result in a generic Card Application Toolkit (CAT) as a new part of the platform.

To ensure the wide acceptance of its deliverables, it is planned for EP SCP to become a partnership project. This will include committees not only from telecommunications but also from other industry sectors.