Contactless
(originally published in , reprinted with permission of the publisher)
An introduction to contactless identification cards and tokens
Contactless identification technologies are found in many form factors (e.g. key fobs, cards, tags). The term ?contactless? refers to the fact that the card (or token) and reader never need come in physical ?contact? to exchange data. Also called contactless smart cards, contactless chips, or contactless ICs, they are a form of smart card (a card with an embedded computer chip). The difference is that they use a radio frequency interface where the more common contact smart cards use a physical interface.
The majority of contactless applications to date have been in mass transit (for fare collection and ticketing but the usage is quickly expanding to include banking, physical access control, and logical access control with support for digital certificates and biometrics.
Contactless technologies and applications offer unique value propositions as well as support for legacy identification technologies on the same card. Successful first read rates, low reader maintenance, and rapid data collection are all significant improvements over the previous contact technologies (e.g. barcode, magnetic stripe, contact chip card / smart card). Customer service levels and customer satisfaction stand to improve dramatically when cards can be read quickly and less time is required for any card-related data collection.
In some circles, the term contactless can be used to define a series of distinct technologies. These include the 13.56 mHz contactless technologies, 125 Khz proximity technology, and low frequency RFID tag used for tracking of products. In other circles, contactless is more strictly used to specify only those read-write technologies that operate at the 13.56 mHz frequency.
Contactless technologies are standardized by the International Organization for Standards (ISO). Three separate ?flavors? have received ISO standardization, ISO 10536 (not really used anymore), ISO 14443 (the dominant technology in the market today), and
