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Advantages of Smart Cards
The first main advantage of smart cards is their
flexibility. There is no need, for example, to carry several
cards: one card can simultaneously be an ID, a credit card,
a stored-value cash card, and a repository of personal
information such as telephone numbers or medical history.
Such a card can be easily replaced if lost, and, because a
PIN number (or other form of security) must be used to
access information, is totally useless to people other than
its legal bearer. At the first attempt to use it illegally,
the card would be deactivated by the card reader itself.
The second main advantage is security. Smart cards can be
electronic key rings, giving the bearer ability to access
information and physical places without need for online
connections. They are encryption devices, so that the user
can encrypt and decrypt information without relying on
unknown, and therefore potentially untrustworthy, appliances
such as ATMs. Smart cards are very flexible in providing
authentication at different level of the bearer and the
counterpart. Finally, with the information about the user
that smart cards can provide to the other parties, they are
useful devices for customizing products and services.
Other general benefits of smart cards are:
Portability
Increasing data storage capacity
Reliability that is virtually unaffected by electrical and
magnetic fields.
What is “Biometrics”, and what kind of
convenience and security can it offer us?
Biometrics refers to an automated system that can identify
an individual by measuring their physical and behavioral
uniqueness or patterns, and comparing it to those on record.
In other words, instead of requiring personal identification
cards, magnetic cards, keys or passwords, biometrics can
identify fingerprints, face, iris, palm prints, signature,
DNA, or retinas of an individual for easy and convenient
verification. With the boom in Internet-based business and
the increased need for accurate verification when accessing
accounts, biometrics is the simplest and most convenient the
solution. Its universal, unique, permanent and measurable
features ensures security of information in E-commerce, such
as
on-line banking and shopping malls. Biometrics can also
provide you with convenience and security, by enabling a
machine to verify the individual by itself and to respond to
the individual’s requests.
Through the use of such physical controls as access control,
and punch card maintenance, user restrictions on certain
apparatus can be made possible with an automated
verification system. |
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