In Australia, government agencies are moving ahead with plans that will put millions of smartcards in local wallets and purses within a few years. Four states have integrated smartcard-based public transport ticketing projects under way.
Queensland is due to introduce a smartcard-based motor vehicle licensing system by next year, and the federal government has tested a planned smartcard replacement for the Medicare card.
Eyeing the success of schemes such as the Octopus card and the capabilities of the technology, local organisations have investigated making payments and transactions using smartcards.
The ability of the cards to store pre-paid financial value means they can be used for small-value transactions, such as vending machine, public phone and fast food purchases. They can also store information for loyalty schemes, and more controversially, use stored data to verify the owner's identity.
As well as providing a service for customers, commercial applications have also been touted as a means of defraying the large cost of the projects.
In Australia, however, it seems that it will be some time before any commercial promise becomes reality, as agencies grapple with roll-outs that are proving difficult, and the problems of mixing commercial and private data on the same card become apparent.
In NSW, where 300,000 school students are being issued Tcard bus passes for the new school year, plans for additional applications are "very much on the backburner", a Transport Ministry spokesman says.
In Queensland, additional applications will only be considered for the Translink system if there is public demand, Transport Minister Paul Lucas says.
Most Australian smartcards are likely to remain single-use for the next five years, Frost and Sullivan industrial analyst Dr Andrew Whitehead says.
For Australians, privacy remains a key concern, he says. "If you start having multiple-use cards, people will know where you are driving, where you catch a bus, where you shop, what type of things you buy. People will start using that for targeted marketing," he says.
Australia's comparative slowness in taking up smartcard technology could be in part due to worries about the Big Brother potential of the technology, Whitehead says.
Queensland's $60 million project to switch the state's 2.5 million drivers to chip-equipped smartcard licences next year has also moved away from additional commercial applications, including optional e-purse and loyalty scheme functions floated in a project proposal issued last year.
The card will remain solely a driver's licence, Lucas says.
Drivers may be given the option of having emergency medical information stored on the card. They may also be able to opt into a scheme that allows organisations such as banks to tap into data stored on the card as a way of authenticating identity.
The licence will not evolve into a "Queensland Card" like the controversial Labor government Australia Card proposal of the mid-1980s, he says. "If you don't need a drivers' licence, you won't need it."
Regardless of assurances, privacy group Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA) is wary of government-issued smartcards, especially if they have commercial applications, as the cards may not be as secure as claimed.
EFA executive director Irene Graham says the group has grave concerns about the Queensland licence project, as people will have no control over what data is extracted from the card once it is handed over a counter.
"We have huge concerns about smartcards even for single applications," she says. The cards may initially only be for licences, but "function creep" could expand their use.
"Ultimately, we think this leads to a de-facto Australia Card, because some other states, and possibly all other states, may be looking at doing the same thing," she says.
The privacy issue means Australian smartcard applications are likely to remain divided into e-government and commercial camps for some time, Keycorp smartcards business development manager Ben Shepherd says.
"I don't think we'll see a crossover between those things," he says.
Nevertheless, widespread issuing of government smartcards may eventually help those who are considering commercial uses.
As users begin to see the benefits of smartcards in government projects they will become more comfortable with the technology's commercial potential, Shepherd says.
Security and privacy concerns may also fade.
"If the government is taking the initiative by issuing smartcards with certain applications on them, that will have a flow-on effect to other industries."
Like its counterparts in Queensland, WA and NSW, Victoria's Transport Ticketing Authority is concentrating on getting its basic fare payment functions in order before it considers other uses.
With privacy an ongoing issue, a level of trust with users is needed before additional commercial applications can be considered, TTA solution architect Duncan Bryce says. "A large part of it will depend on getting the basics right. That will provide a trusted platform from which other opportunities could flow," he says.
It's most likely that additional applications beyond fare payment will also be transport-related, Bryce says. For example, the cards could be used to pay for parking at station carparks. "As to whether combining other applications with a transport application would lead to consumer or trust issues, that's an issue for farther down the track," he says.
While additional commercial applications may be some way off, smartcards will have the immediate advantage of providing greatly improved data for their issuing authorities. In transport applications, for example, they will provide a much better picture of how people travel, and when.
They will also make it easier to cut costs such as concession card misuse, which is thought to cost about $112 million annually in NSW alone.
When Queensland begins a trial roll-out of its Translink system in the second quarter, it will "start to give us better information about travel patterns so we can better target the money we spend on subsidising public transport", Lucas says.
"We'll start to know where people go and when."
Like Queensland, Victoria says it is interested in trip data, but it has no interest in tracking individual travellers.
"We're very cognisant of the need to maintain privacy at all stages", Bryce says. The TTA has already formulated the privacy framework for its system.
Nevertheless, the improved data provided by the smartcard system should improve services from the state's various transport providers through better planning, he says.
"Where they improve service delivery, that will increase patronage, and there are very clear examples of that around the world."
Autor: Chris Jenkins
Quelle: Australian IT, 01.02.2005
