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Summary of SCP activities 

The 25th ETSI Board meeting held on 29 - 30 March 2000 approved the creation of an ETSI Project for Smart Cards, TC SCP.   Scp changed from EP to TC at ETSI Board meeting held on 19-20 October 2005. This ETSI Project has replaced the SMG Technical Sub-Committee, SMG9. The first reason for the change to SMG9 was to create a central focus point for the standardisation of a common IC card platform for 2G and 3G mobile telecommunication systems. A second reason was and is to allow the participation from companies involved in standardisation work for mobile communication systems in 3GPP, 3GPP2, GAIT, T1P1, TR45 and others yet to be identified.

Responsibilities

The main responsibilities of TC SCP are: 

development and maintenance of a common IC card platform for all mobile telecommunication systems;  development and maintenance of the application independent specifications for the Integrated Circuit Card/Mobile Equipment interface of those telecommunication systems under the responsibility of ETS; development and maintenance of IC card standards for general telecommunication purposes;  development and maintenance of IC card standards employing advanced security methods for telecommunications applications such as financial transactions over Mobile Telecommunication Networks ("mobile commerce"). 

Tasks

The main tasks of TC SCP are:

  • maintenance of the common platform standards developed by the committee;
  • specification of enhancements to the common platform to allow the addition of innovative features and functions;
  • specification of generic issues for IC cards for Telecommunications, these include but are not restricted to: physical enhancements and specification of new form factors,
  • interface enhancements such as new commands and improved speed,
  • generic application download and load mechanisms,
  • electrical parameters and protocol issues,
  • advanced security mechanisms and related protocols,
  • advanced functionality for use by applications supported by the common platform standards; 
  • specifications for the use of low voltage technology for telecommunications cards; 
  • enhancement of the existing specification ETSI TS 102 222 for administrative commands;
  • elaboration and maintenance of IC card related test specifications for the common platform in collaboration with the respective groups of 3GPP and other mobile smart card specification bodies;
  • identification and investigation of the standardisation of application features such as ME personalisation, PLMN selectors, access technology selectors and a common phonebook (Telecom Directory);
  • identification and investigation of new features and functionalities such as transmission enhancements and the use of databases.

 Liaisons

SCP has direct liaisons with the relevant bodies of all committees involved in elaborating the common platform. In particular, SCP has direct liaisons with ETSI TC SEC involved in the specification of security matters.

In addition, SCP has liaison with CEN TC224 and other regional / national bodies to be identified. Some informal liaison is handled by delegates attending international standardisation meetings and forums, for example ISO TC68 SC6, ISO/IEC JTC1/SC17, the Java Card Forum and the Open Mobile Alliance.

For further information on fora, please refer to:

https://webapp.etsi.org/Forawatch/HOME.ASP?TB=534&FIND=SEARCH_TB

Working Groups

SCP established 3 Working groups. For further information on the ToRs of the working groups please refer to the corresponding pages:

ToR SCP REQ

ToR SCP TEC

ToR SCP TEST

Work achieved, current specifications

The following set of specification was created and is maintained by TC SCP:

TS 101 220 Rel-5 and Rel-6 “ETSI numbering system for telecommunication application providers”
This Release 5/6 specification replaces the previous Release 99 and Release 4 version of the specification. The aim of the specification is to have one core document describing and specifying the mechanism for the reservation and allocation of AIDs. It was created by merging the existing ETSI TS 101 220 specification with 3GPP TS 31.110 and other such specifications.

TS 102 124 Rel-6 "Transport Protocol For CAT Applications; Service Description; Stage 1"
This document defines the stage one description of the Transport Protocol, CAT_TP, for CAT applications based on TS 102 223.

TS 102 221 R99, Rel-4, Rel-5 and Rel-6 “UICC-Terminal interface; Physical and logical characteristics”
TS 102 221 is THE core physical and logical specification that is used by “Partner” committees as a foundation for the development of system specific specifications on top of the SCP specification.

TS 102 222 R99, Rel-4, Rel-5 and Rel-6 “Administrative commands for telecommunications applications”:
This specification includes a set of administrative commands used for telecommunications applications. The commands defined in the document are compliant to the commands defined in the ISO/IEC 7816 series where corresponding commands in ISO/IEC are available.

TS 102 223 Rel-4, Rel-5 and Rel-6 “ Card Application Toolkit (CAT)”:
This specification is the core toolkit specification that is used by "Partner" committees as a foundation for the development of system specific specifications which refer to the SCP toolkit core specification.

TS 102 224 Rel-6 “Security mechanisms for UICC based Applications - Functional requirements”;
TS 102 225 Rel-6 “Secured packet structure for UICC based applications”;
TS 102 226 Rel-6 “Remote APDU structure for UICC based applications”:
These specifications contain a set of common security features that can be used by applications based on the UICC as well as the description of the remote management of files and applications on the UICC based on a secured packet structure.

TS 102 230 R99 and Rel-4 “UICC-Terminal interface; Physical, electrical and logical test specification”:
This document is the corresponding test specification to the core specification in TS 102 221.

TS 102 240 Rel-6 “UICC Application Programming Interface and Loader Requirements; Service description”:
This specification contains a common set of requirements. Programming language specific APIs and Loader mechanisms are built according to the requirements stated in this specification.

TS 102 241 for Rel-6: “Java CardTM Application Programming Interface for the UICC”.
This document defines the stage two description of the “Application Programming Interface and Loader Requirements” as defined in TS 102 240. It describes the functional capabilities and the information flow for the UICC API implemented according to the Java Card™ 2.2 specification.

TR 102 151 Rel-6 "Measurement of Electromagnetic Emission of SIM Cards;"
The document describes:

a reference test board and TEM cell for EM measurements of smart cards; EM measurement procedures for smart card using the reference test board and TEM cell; Sample EM measurements of already existing smart cards.

TR 102 216 for all Releases: "Vocabulary for Smart Card Platform Specifications".
This document is a collection of terms, definitions, abbreviations and acronyms related to the baseline documents defining SCP objectives and systems framework. This document provides a tool for further work on SCP technical documentation and facilitates their understanding.

TR 102 242 for Rel-6: "Terminal - card interface; Considerations on robustness improvements".
Extensive use of the GSM specifications had highlighted a potential weakness of the communication interface between smart card and terminal. The evaluation showed that radiated RF bursts could generate significant I/O line voltage drops that could lead to major communication interference. The Technical Report describes the failure mechanisms that could potentially generate major operating issues between the terminal and the card, the countermeasures that should be applied within the current specifications and the enhancements that may further increase the interface robustness. This TR concludes the discussion on EMC issues mentioned in previous Management Reports.

Work Items

A complete list of all active and completed work items and detailed information on them can be found on the SCP portal in the “Work Item Monitoring” window. The following list gives an overview of the active work items:

Releases

SCP started its work at Release 1999 (see above for details on the specifications available for R99). SCP followed the time schedule for the completion of releases and the numbering scheme of 3GPP. Release 5 was closed at SCP #10 in June 2002.

Maintenance of specifications

SCP stops the maintenance of a release of a specification after 2 years. Only essential corrections will be done after a specification has been frozen. For further information please contact the SCP Technical Officer