Systems Committee

The aim of the Systems Committee is to define open specifications that can be used for the back-office infrastructure of any smart card program, creating an industry and technology neutral smart card management environment which is able to support all market requirements, with specific support for GlobalPlatform cards. The Systems Committee is currently chaired by Christophe Biehlmann from Datacard Group.

Committee objectives:

• To develop, maintain and evolve the GlobalPlatform Systems Specifications and related supporting documents and tools, while retaining backwards compatibility with earlier technology releases.
• To define the roles and responsibilities of actors within single and multi-application smart card infrastructures and to define the interfaces between those roles.
• To define and develop the GlobalPlatform Systems Compliance Program, to facilitate interoperability within GlobalPlatform smart card management systems.
• To reach out to and liaise with other relevant industry and standardization groups and identify new business requirements and opportunities for progressing joint working initiatives.
• To work with the GlobalPlatform Device and Card Committees, ensuring alignment of systems technology within the context of the wider GlobalPlatform technology infrastructure.

Beneficiaries of the committee include:

• Issuers wishing to launch single or multi-application smart card programs.
• Application developers wishing to create new applications and services.
• Entities involved in the architecture, design and implementation of systems supporting card customization tasks. This includes smart card software and hardware vendors, personalization bureaus, application developers, card issuers and parties providing services to any of these entities.
• System integrators and other entities that need to understand or interact with a smart card management system.

2008 activities and priorities:

• To develop the GlobalPlatform Messaging Specification in line with emerging requirements from the ID and mobile telecommunications communities.
• To progress work towards a new version of the GlobalPlatform All Systems Profiles and Scripting Specifications.

Systems Committee Working Groups

Profile and Scripting Working Group
Objectives:

• To develop open specifications and supporting documentation for card customization (loading, installing, data preparation and pre/post issuance personalization).

Messaging Working Group
Objectives:

• To define the overall back-end systems infrastructure for GlobalPlatform smart card management.
• To standardize interfaces between logical entities in a card lifecycle management infrastructure.
• To support a distributed implementation model that allows different entities to share information.

Key Management System (KMS) Working Group
Objectives:

• To define interfaces between Key Management Systems (KMS), enabling control of key usage and ensuring interoperability between systems that share keys during the lifecycle of GlobalPlatform cards and applications.
• To develop, maintain and evolve the KMS Requirements Specification.

Systems Compliance Working Group
Objectives:

• To make recommendations for defining the compliance of GlobalPlatform systems to the GlobalPlatform Systems Specification.
• To maintain all aspects of the Systems Compliance Test Suite for Profile and Scripting.
• To establish and develop a work plan for phase two of the Systems Compliance Program which will enhance coverage on compliance to the GlobalPlatform Messaging Specification.

Upcoming Meetings:

Please see below a schedule of upcoming meetings of the Systems Committee and its working groups. If you have an interest in keeping abreast of committee discussions and developments or would like to become actively involved in these meetings, please click here.