If this doesn't drop the per unit cost .

High-end smart cards with all the bells and whistles, like a RF proximity loop, suitably large chips, etc., etc. are a little bit expensive for the average profit-based entity to undertake. If ONLY there were enough volume being produced to reduce the per unit cost . . . The several million-large CAC (common access card) deployment in the US military over the past several years is still pretty puny.

Well hang on there sparky because it seems that China's about to pump up the volume as this story from cardtechnology.com points out.

Because it's small, here's the item:

02/03/04 The world's largest smart card rollout is set to begin: starting in March, all Chinese over the age of 16 will be issued a smart card as ID document. The rollout of chip cards to 1.3 billion citizens is expected to be completed by the year 2008, according to the official news agency Xinhua. Officials of the Ministry of Public Security expect the new ID card to be a way of preventing the rampant forgery of old ID cards. The new card will be put into use in the cities of Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Changsha.

The ID cards will be the size of standard bank card and use contactless smart card chips. Further, they will carry only the identification application and be fixed memory cards with 4 kilobytes of memory. Only Chinese vendors supply the chips and the modules that encase them. According to Chinese officials, the technology must be supplied domestically "for security reasons".

China started to issue ID cards in 1984 in light of a fledgling market-oriented economy that required more traveling. Traveling had previously been restricted by the household registration system set up in 1958. This system specified where each Chinese should live, which normally was where they were born. If they moved, they lost rights to cheaper education and missed out on job opportunities. China now considers the 1958 system to be outdated. In the past two decades of economic reforms millions of Chinese have left their homes to find work.

Expect some outsourcing to China.

Posted by Grayson at February 4, 2004 07:40 AM