Smart Card: Operating system for smart card -Governance Now

Smart Card: Operating system for smart card

Anurag Ashok, founder, e-Smart Systems Pvt Ltd.

GN Bureau | June 14, 2012

The smart card operating system for transport application (SCOSTA) has evolved over the years. Initially it started as an operating system for transport application, as the name suggests. But today it is part of every individual identity.

Currently, it is just the identity that is going to be stored on the card. But the future requirements of storage on a SCOSTA compliant card have already been taken care of by NIC. So, if required, more applications can reside in the card without changing the card.

In the past when projects based on smart cards were taken up, many initiatives would end up in courts. A lot of companies were filing court cases against others, but today most companies are busy with projects. This has been possible as card manufacturers are following the standards and there is no vendor lock-in or preference to a particular technology. SCOSTA based cards are growing fastest in India and I will not be surprised if SCOSTA CL becomes the default operating system (OS) or default physical access OS.

There is still a monopoly in contact-less, but SCOSTA CL will break that. Even though it is currently expensive, the prices will fall.

For us as a company, SCOSTA has given us a platform to grow. After seven-eight years in this domain, we are now getting requests from international companies to develop OS, for different platforms, using the same file structure, because they realise the benefit of SCOSTA. So rather than any regulation, the SCOSTA based smart cards are becoming popular based on merits.

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