A UNIQUE smart card technology, developed but never applied in Australia, is
about to make its commercial debut in China.
Earlier this month a Brisbane company won a A$17 million contract to
supply an identification system based on the technology to one of China鈥檚
largest insurance companies. If the system is a success, eGlobal Holdings will
be on the verge of opening up a vast new market.
The heart of the system is an algorithm which compresses a passport-style
digital image of the cardholder and stores it, in encrypted form, in the card鈥檚
memory. The high-resolution image is retrieved by inserting the card into a
special reader鈥攁 handheld device about the size of two mobile phones stuck
together which houses a small colour screen.
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The idea of the system is to enable medical authorities to check the
cardholder鈥檚 identity. In addition to the image, the card stores the person鈥檚
name, age, and address, as well as his or her measurements and medical and
superannuation records. For verification purposes, the information on the card
is replicated in a central database.
The card also functions as an electronic purse. Once charged with credit, it
can be debited for each visit to the doctor, a handy feature in a country where
credit cards are relatively rare.
Known as SmartVision, the image capture and display system won an Australian
award for industrial design in 1998. But the product was never commercialised
locally, because of lingering concerns over privacy in the wake of the Australia
Card debacle鈥攖he Hawke government鈥檚 abortive attempt in the mid-80s to
introduce a national identification scheme to eliminate welfare fraud.
That plan came to grief over fears that smart cards could also be used as
instruments of social control. Such concerns are not high on the list of
priorities for the Chinese government.
鈥淔raud is endemic in China,鈥� says eGlobal managing director Gordon Chalmers.
It encompasses everything from security breaches to falsifying bank accounts.
鈥淪mart cards can circumvent the vast majority of the possibilities,鈥� Chalmers
claims.
Under the terms of the contract, eGlobal will develop an integrated system of
at least 2.6 million smart cards plus readers and hardware for the General
Social Insurance Company of Shenyang, a city of about seven million people in
northeastern China. The software needed to connect the system to local banks
will be written by Neu Alpine, China鈥檚 largest software development firm, which
also happens to be based in Shenyang.
eGlobal is unusual for an Australian company, in that it has more Chinese
employees 鈥攁round 130鈥攖han Australian ones. More than half the
company is based in six offices all over China. The reason is that two of the
three founders are Chinese.
Limin Song chose to settle in Australia six years ago. As an international
trader in industrial goods, it made sense to stay in the same time zone as his
customers. His sister Lihua worked for a leading optical fibre manufacturer
helping China gear up for the Internet age. The third founder is Chalmers, an
electronic engineer by background.
Last year eGlobal acquired Coms21, developer of the SmartVision technology,
鈥渂ecause there are four major projects which we knew we鈥檇 have a good chance of
winning with this technology,鈥� says Chalmers.