UL set to offer MIFARE certification for smart cards, mobile devices
03 April, 2013
category: Smart Cards
Global safety science company UL has been accredited and authorized to operate a MIFARE Test Center focused on the functional certification of MIFARE enabled products.
A release from UL reveals that the company’s MIFARE Testing Center will provide certification services for all current and future MIFARE solutions, including MIFARE Classic, MIFARE Plus and MIFARE DESFire. UL is no stranger to the certification and testing process having previously worked with MasterCard, Visa, American Express and Global Platform on their own certification initiatives.
Expected to begin in September 2013, the UL MIFARE Test Center will ensure interoperability across 3rd party MIFARE implementations and may help prevent interoperability issues at MIFARE field installations in public transport, access management, event ticketing, loyalty and e-purses. Moreover, the certification process will not cause any additional delay in the development time of MIFARE enabled products.
MIFARE is the premier open architecture technology platform for contactless ticket, smart card, mobile and reader solutions. With more than 50 million reader core components and 5 billion smart card ICs sold, MIFARE represents the largest global installation base.
Boasting a list of more than 1,000 business partners, MIFARE’s community accounted for more than 80% of all contactless ticketing credentials deployed in 2012 according to ABI Research.
To further ensure the promise of interoperability, NXP— MIFARE’s creator— has licensed a number of companies, including smart card and chip manufacturers, to develop a MIFARE implementation on secure microcontroller chips for deployment in multi-application markets. This testing process will ensure interoperability as well as trust between the implementations of different MIFARE licensees.
Formed in 2012, UL’s Transaction Security service line is the result of a merger of Collis, RFI Global Services and Witham Laboratories. Under its new moniker, UL is an independent technical resource in the transaction security technology domain, offering services in following areas:
• Advisory services
• Training courses
• Security evaluation (PCI and Common Criteria)
• Functional test services & certification
• Test tools