Interview with Torsten Nordentoft, Technical Director, CardLab ApS.

FB

Can you please tell us about the history of CardLab?

CardLab

We are a group of investors who invest in different kinds of technologies and one of the partners had this idea about whether it would be possible to have biometric recognition on a credit card. We initially started by looking at what kind of patents were in this field and we found that there were a number of companies who had filed their patents for the last fifteen years for biometric recognition and also dynamic magnetic stripes. The first thing we did solve was the dynamic magnetic stripe issue where many companies have tried for a long time to find a way to emulate the magnetic stripe but with no success. We found the right solution, solved the problem, and filed a patent application. The next challenge was to get the biometrics onto the card and that was probably the biggest challenge. And that’s where we are; we have gone down this road for four years and spent a large amount of money to get to this point. And it looks very promising. We have substantial interest from major banks in the U.S. and also other countries asking us for the possibility of using it for citizen ID and passports.

FB

You recently announced the final ISO 7810 compliant biometric credit card; can you tell us how that works?

CardLab

Well there are some key features. The first thing you have to really understand when you do this is that you need to have a card that will go into the existing infrastructure without requiring any change. You can imagine trying to change all the software for all the terminals or anything on the hardware in a world where magnetic credit cards are used everywhere in the world. I don’t have a number but we are talking of millions of terminals in an infrastructure that is very old and well established so any change would not be welcome. We wanted to have a card that would go straight into the industry without requiring any change. That meant we had to have any biometric recognition and enrollment happening on board. And that is the key difference between what we are doing and what others are doing. Other cards hold a copy of the fingerprint on board, but enrolment and match is done off the card, using external sensors. This becomes a security issue because the owner is no longer in control of his/her ID data. The challenge is to have the technology on the card, inside of the card powered by the card itself with an onboard battery. This is a very large challenge.

FB

You got around that challenge with your unique patented snap switch. How does this work?

CardLab

When you have a microcontroller on a smartcard for whatever application and it’s going to be powered by onboard power you really need to have a microcontroller that goes into sleep mode where it consumes minimum power. Most microcontrollers will have that ability. Then you need to bring it out of sleep mode…you need to wake it up. You do that typically by putting power to two pins on the microcontroller. So you apply the two or three volts across these two pins and the microcontroller will wake up. Traditionally this is done by a simple piece of wire and a dome switch inside of the card and when you press the dome’s switch you create a short circuit which will then power the microcontroller which will wake the card up. But that is an issue because of the dome switch. They are expensive, unreliable, difficult to find on the card, not user friendly and often are depressed during the manufacturing process so you are draining the battery while you are baking the card. So we came up with a simple idea- we took a PIEZO disc which when you bend or flick it, it would generate power. It’s very cheap and very simple. We took two wires and soldered them in the microcontroller and when you flick it, it generates power and wakes the microcontroller up. I don’t know why this hasn’t been thought of before and so we took out a patent on it. We can basically regulate how much you’ll either bend or flick or tap the card before it wakes up.

FB

Isn’t there than an opportunity for this to accidentally turn on?

CardLab

When the card is in a wallet and is being bent we of course do not want it to turn on so we found a way to calibrate it so that you really need to tap it or flick it. You can adjust this and control pretty precisely how much you need to tap or flick the card before it wakes up.

FB

You mentioned some of the applications that this biometric card could be used for. Which markets do you see this being utilized in?

CardLab

There are two key markets. One is security access. There are many airports that use magnetic card for security. If you get hold of the card, you have access to the security areas, but by adding the biometric functionality to the card, you link the card to the owner. That means that instantly, without having to change anything at the Airport, you can use the card immediately. You just need to replace the card and enroll the owner’s fingerprint to it.

The other major market is the financial card market. Today fraud is mostly done by copying cards, also called skimming, and this card will stop that, but the major increase in fraud will happen with internet trading and online banking. This card will allow you to have a very secure transaction without being able to be hacked.

FB

What has been the reaction to this news reaching the market?

CardLab

Well of course we have a lot of people addressing us and fortunately there are some very large customers out there and this is where we need to go because this technology is expensive. We need to go into mass high volume production in order to get the cost of the card down. The technology at this stage is not ready for somebody to walk in and buy. It would have to be a project where you closely collaborate with a client- a big bank or a big security access company for example.

FB

You have also worked with Fingerprint Cards in Sweden on this particular project, what did they provide?

CardLab

They provided the sensor itself. We had to find a sensor that uses minimum power when enrolling and when doing the match. We found that after several years of searching, Fingerprint Cards technology was the best for us. There is a lot of research and development going on in this area right now but Fingerprint Cards is currently the best option.

FB

How long does the power last on the card?

CardLab

In the banking world it’s measured by the number of transactions and the target here is that the card has to be able to survive in the field for at least three years. That goal is very achievable.

FB

Thank you for telling us about this new product. I look forward to hearing more about this in the near future.

CardLab

You are most welcome Peter.