Introduction

In order to standardise and secure the data for identity and related applications, Govt. of India is deploying the smart card technology in various applications such as Indian Driving Licences, Vehicle Registration Certificates, National Identity, Electronic Passports etc.

Smart cards are secured electronic devices that are used for keeping data and other information in a way that only "authorized" users are permitted to see or write the data.

A technical Sub-committee was set up to draw operating system specifications for the smart card based Indian Driving Licences (DL) and Vehicle Registration Certificates (RC) on in June 2001. The SCOSTA specifications were defined primarily by IIT Kanpur alongwith this committee. The SCOSTA specification is largely compliant with the international ISO 7816 standard (parts 4 to 9) for smart cards. Subsequently, the standards were enhanced to support secure messaging which is necessary in many applications involving contact-less communications. The enhanced standard (SCOSTA-CL) was defined by IIT Kanpur and was released to public in July 2006. The first major application of this standard is the e-Passport that was launced in India on June 25, 2008. The SCOSTA-CL standard is upward compatible to old SCOSTA standard.

The specifications drawn for the operating system, key management system, application and card layout and ISO definitions are mandatory to be complied with and form an integral part of SCOSTA and associated applications. In addition, the cards for use with these applications must comply with the ISO 7816 standard (parts 1 to 3) that detail the electrical, physical, and communication aspects for smart cards. The relevant standards for the contact-less mode of communication are ISO14443 (parts 1 to 4) that detail the electrical characteristics and contact-less protocol for contact-less mode of communication.

SCOSTA can be implemented on any microprocessor based smart card. The applicaitons specify the memory requirement for the card. Usually, 4KB permanent storage (EEPROM) on the microprocessor is sufficient for DL and RC applications, 16KB for the national ID and 64KB for the e-Passport. The use of any other media (such as optical stripes) for additional data storage is not prescribed by these application specifications.

All specifications are open and can be downloaded from the download page. Further details are also available at www.scosta.gov.in.

Objectives

The SCOSTA project was initiated with the following principal objectives.

Standardization of Information

The card layout, data fields and other relevant information stored on the card and the back-end have been standardized to ensure that information on all cards (issued wherever in India) is uniform and can be read and written all over India.

Inter-operability

Since the Indian applications are to be deployed nationwide, it is essential for the standards to be interoperable and therefore, SCOSTA specifications deal fully with this aspect. All non-interoperable features are discouraged and are therefore non-compliant and do not form part of SCOSTA specifications

Multi Vendor Support / Non-Proprietary

Keeping in view the need for future up-gradation, multi vendor support and the critical requirement of the specifications and product to be non-proprietary, it is essential to have the operating system specification to be open and standard.

Security and Integrity of Data

A microprocessor based smart card can ensure that only authorized persons can read or write the application data stored in the card. SCOSTA supports both password based and key based authentication of users. Additionally, the SCOSTA-CL also supports the secure messaging and session keys for communication between the reader and the card. The application specifications include secure key management systems that ensures that only officials authorized to change the card data can do so and that it is not possible to create forged identity.

Downloads

Click here to download SCOSTA standards, test scripts for SCOSTA compliant OS etc.

Contact

Prof. Rajat Moona, Prof. Manindra Agrawal
Department of Computer Science and Engineering,
Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur,
Kanpur-208 016 UP India.
Fax: +91-512-2590725

Dr. B. K. Gairola, DG,
National Informatics Centre,
CGO Complex,
6, Lodhi Road,
New Delhi.