What makes a smart card "smart?"

For one, a typical card can hold about 72,000 bytes of data – about the equivalent of a 10-page word document. Compare that to traditional access cards, which can store only 200 bits of data. The data capacity of smart cards means they can hold multiple biometric templates, including fingerprints and iris scans. Smart cards are more convenient, more durable and, because they can’t be duplicated, more secure.