TRADE SHOW/ASSOCIATION UPDATE

The Smart Card Alliance, a non-profit association working to accelerate the adoption of multiple applications for smart card technology, will host a conference on February 5 through February 7, 2002 in Austin, Texas with leading keynote speakers from the Progressive Policy Institute, the Department of Defense and Billpoint.

The event will be held at the SchlumbergerSema Austin campus and includes a one-day educational program from the Smart Card Alliance Educational Institute and a two-day conference.

"The Smart Card Alliance February conference will host a variety of industry luminaries as speakers, sponsors and attendees," said Donna Farmer, chief executive officer and president of the Smart Card Alliance. "The event will feature numerous sessions that demonstrate that smart card technology provides the best solution for secure identification and payment applications."

Keynote speakers include Dr. Rob Atkinson, vice president and director for the Technology and New Economy Project, Progressive Policy Institute; Mary Dixon, director of Access Card Office, Department of Defense; Rob Brandewie, Deputy Director, Defense Manpower Data Center, Department of Defense; and Janet Crane, chief executive officer of Billpoint and vice president of eBay.

The topics to be covered on day one of the conference include: Social and Political Risks of Personal ID Cards; Alternative Technologies for Private ID Card Implementation; The Smart Card Role in Private IDs; A View from Abroad--How Identity Issues are Being Addressed Internationally; and Results of the Task Force on Secure Personal ID Card Systems.

The Smart Card Alliance is a not-for profit, multi-industry association of member firms working to accelerate the widespread acceptance of multiple applications for smart card technology. For more information on the February meeting, please visit https://www.smartcardalliance.org> and follow the link to Alliance Activities.

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To address the gaps in wireless security, and to establish a secure, end-to-end financial transaction infrastructure, Financial Services Technology Consortium (FSTC)-member financial institutions and technology companies have launched a collaborative three-month wireless transaction validation test.

Real world transactions will be used to test the encryption aspects of the WAP 1.2.1 mobile specification, and dynamic proxy navigation.

Sponsoring or participating companies in the WAP encryption test include: 7/24 Solutions, Bank of America, InfoGard Laboratories, J.P. Morgan Chase, Neomar, Openwave, RIM, Verizon Wireless, and Wells Fargo Bank. The project is open to all interested companies to join, with a two-day project launch session scheduled for February 6-7, at Wells Fargo Bank in San Francisco.

"Financial institutions need to validate that they can communicate privately and securely with their mobile customers," said Zachary Tumin, Executive Director of FSTC. "This test will not be simulated, but use live airwaves, real mobile devices, and real software products to test financial transactions, such as bill payment, fund transfers, and account balance inquiries. Using real applications we will be able to observe, in real time, if the encryption holds, end-to-end, for sensitive financial transactions."

"Without this collaborative effort each FSTC member bank would have to duplicate the effort and cost to conduct the same test to certify the new WAP specifications," said Kathy DeWit, Executive Vice President of Payment Strategies at Wells Fargo Bank. "Throughout the year, FSTC members regularly pool their technical resources and funds to solve shared problems. Collaboration makes our results more representative of the industry, and much less expensive, than going alone."

Results from the study will be available to project participants in May 2002, subsequently to non-participating FSTC members, and then to the public in the autumn of 2002.

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A new conference that will showcase successful applications of tiometric technologies will be held at the Hotel Del Coronado, San Diego, from March 25 to 26.

The conference will be a forum to understand the opportunities and challenges of this new industry. The development of powerful online networks and databases, along with new electronic biometrics recording and recognition systems, are about to change the way biometrics information is created, stored, and used.

Speakers include the top industry experts, including International Biometric Group, Visionics Corporation, Morpheus Technologies, Unisys, Fidelity Investments, Sagem Morpho, Sony Electronics, Ankari, Biometrica, Bio-Key International, Booz Allen Hamilton, AuthenTec, Imagis Technologies, Identix, Acuity Market Intelligence, and more, with special presentations from Tampa Police Department and American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

For more information, visit the conference Web site at www.srinstitute.com/cm381