Investigating a smart technology

Abstract

Today's society is extremely apprehensive and cautious regarding security attacks with the result that identification and authentication have become a necessity. Sectors such as healthcare, education and transportation all require robust identification solutions and Smart-cards can deliver these solutions. The memory capacity and processing capabilities of the Smart-card make it vastly superior to competing technologies such as magnetic stripe cards, which are susceptible to such threats as 'skimming' and as a result are very insecure. Additionally, the data on the cards is often erased or corrupted by scratches or magnetic interferences. There are however many disadvantages to Smart-cards; such as the fact that both the cards and the infrastructure necessary can be costly. In order to be acknowledged as a standard and to enhance user acceptance of the cards, it requires a behavioural, on the part of the user, rather than technological change. To date previous research studies have focused on Smart-card failures. However, this paper investigates the introduction of this Smart technology into an educational setting. Therefore the factors that affect its acceptance and use as well as the issues facing organizations and universities in adopting the technology are investigated. The paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the findings of the case through an illustration of the factors identified in relevant literature and those identified in the study (see Table 1) as well as unforeseen behavioral issues from the users such as a mass student protest against the use of the card. © 2004 by International Federation for Information Processing.