SCP Activity Report 2001

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

The main task for ETSI Project Smart Card Platform is to create a smart card platform for Second and Third Generation (2G and 3G) mobile telecommunications on which other organizations can base their system-specific applications. In particular, this will allow users access to global roaming by means of their Smart Card, irrespective of the radio access technology used. The Project is also responsible for developing standards for IC cards to secure financial transactions over mobile telecommunications systems (mobile commerce).

The backbone of the platform which deals with the physical and logical characteristics of a smart card interface was approved in EP SCP's first few months. In addition to the global roaming between different mobile telecommunications systems, it allows 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. While the 3G application would just use the normal radio means of the terminal, the banking application could use, independently and at the same time, a different bearer of the terminal such as a Bluetooth or infrared interface. To further the advancement of mobile commerce, agreement was also reached on increasing the maximum current consumption at low voltages of a UICC, the smart card specified by the Project. This will facilitate the use of co-processors to enable digital signatures.

Work in 2001 focussed on deriving common requirements from the existing GSM smart card specifications to serve other systems. This resulted in a generic Card Application Toolkit (CAT) as a generalization of the Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) Application Toolkit forming a new part of the platform. This new specification can be used not only by other mobile communication systems, as is already the case, but also by any other application built on the generic platform specification. The effort of making Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) specifications independent of their bearer will continue in 2002 with emphasis on generic download mechanisms and application programming interfaces.

EP SCP covers a wide spectrum of topics. To focus its work, the Project created three Working Groups (WGs): WG1 Architecture deals with general architecture issues of smart cards, the core specification and new topics such as Internet Protocol (IP) on smart cards; WG2 Security looks into secure data download and Public Key Infrastructure on smart cards, while WG3 CAT and API deals, as the name suggests, with Card Application Toolkit and application programming interfaces.

The Project's working methods became totally paperless in 2001, with all plenary meetings increasingly using wireless Local Area Networks.

To ensure the wide acceptance of its deliverables, talks are continuing on the possibility of EP SCP becoming a partnership project. This would bring together committees not only from telecommunications but also from other industry sectors.