A framework for secure NFC applications

Abstract

Near Field Communication (NFC) technology provides a more natural and intuitive way for users to interact with intelligent environments within close proximity. It can be used in many scenarios including ticketing, advertising, controlled access, etc. However, NFC applications, especially those installed to the Secure Element (SE) for secure usage, have not yet been deployed widely enough in commercial environment. One reason is that the market is emerging and NFC-enabled smartphones are still very limited. Another reason is the life-cycle management of NFC applications on the SE is very complicated for application providers since the NFC business ecosystems have not yet taken off. In this paper, in order to establish a secure operating environment for third-party NFC applications, we propose a trusted NFC application management framework, which provides secure application provisioning and life-cycle management services. With the framework, NFC smartphone users can find and download interested NFC applications easily, and application providers can deploy NFC applications on users' SEs in a simple but secure way.