The same secure chip technology that’s been rolled out in the banking world for ATM and credit card transactions is sweeping across sectors throughout the American economy. These “smart cards” are also not always necessarily cards anymore, with the same secure, programmable chips embedded in mobile devices, wearables and “Internet of Things”-connected devices, a development that has prompted the erstwhile Smart Card Alliance, based in Princeton Junction, N.J., to change its name to the Secure Technology Alliance.
The fundamental security advantage of smart cards and other secure technology permutations is that they have built-in features making it much more difficult for a would-be hacker to steal or alter the information stored, says Randy Vanderhoof, executive director of the Secure Technology Alliance. The second major feature is that since the chip has a microprocessor, “It has all the computing power of a laptop or mobile device. It can run applications, it can do calculations, and it can generate unique data as part of a secure transaction,” he says.