Smart Card Interfaces
A smart card interface consists of a predefined set of services, the protocols that are necessary to invoke the services, and any assumptions regarding the context of the services.
With respect to smart cards, use of the term interface is similar to its use in the Component Object Model (COM), which in turn is similar in concept to the ISO 7816/5 application identifier, but with a different scope.
Each smart card interface is identified by a globally unique identifier (GUID). For example, an interface might be defined that provides biorhythm information to its holder. If a specified smart card supports this service, then in turn it supports that interface GUID. By using the interface GUIDs, an application can search for a particular set of interfaces and locate any smart card that supports that set to complete a task.
Although an interface has one GUID, it can be implemented differently on different cards. For example, the previously mentioned biorhythm interface can have several different implementations, yet each of them is referenced by using the same GUID. The different implementations do not change the interaction between the application and the smart card; however, the interaction between the service provider and the smart card might differ, depending on the implementation of the interface.
The set of interfaces that are supported by a smart card is defined in the smart card introduction.
See Also
Last updated on Saturday, April 10, 2004
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