GlobalPlatform Appoints New Card Committee Chair

28 January 2009 – GlobalPlatform, the international specification body for smart card infrastructure, has appointed Karl Eglof HARTEL of Giesecke & Devrient (G&D) as the new Chair of its Card Committee. He replaces Jean-Loup DEPINAY of Oberthur Technologies who steps down following his recent election to GlobalPlatform’s Board of Directors.

Karl Eglof joined G&D in 2000 after working in the field of military communication and information systems and is currently Project Manager for New Technologies in G&D’s Telecom Division, where he lead G&D’s first Near Field Communication (NFC) projects. He has been involved in standardization for several years, with one particular focus being the European Telecommunications Standardisation Institute (ETSI) which specifies the smart card platform for telecommunications. On the basis of this experience, Karl Eglof has contributed to GlobalPlatform’s Mobile Task Force and Card Specification Working Group.

He leads the Card Committee as it enters a significant year of new initiatives to align with market developments in the smart card industry. Amongst the committee’s 2009 priorities is the release of a series of amendments to GlobalPlatform Card Specification v2.2 that will support new requirements related to contactless and NFC technology and incorporate new secure channel protocols. The committee also plans to release GlobalPlatform Card Specification v3.0, which will support a new web application model compatible with Java Card 3.0, before the end of the year.

Karl Eglof comments: “Good standards are the key to the continued prosperity of the smart card market. GlobalPlatform has played, and will continue to play, a unique and successful role in the development of standards for the smart card infrastructure.”

Kevin Gillick, Executive Director of GlobalPlatform, adds: “Like many colleagues at G&D, Karl Eglof has been actively engaged in the activities of GlobalPlatform including the Card Specifications Working Group and the Mobile Task Force. His organization, communication and leadership skills coupled with his strong technical background and knowledge of GlobalPlatform make him an outstanding candidate to direct the activities of the Card Committee in 2009.”

The Card Committee is one of three committees within GlobalPlatform’s member-led structure that conduct technical activity and specification development through specific working groups. As such, it sits alongside the organization’s Systems and Device Committees to allow members to channel their expertise and knowledge into targeted work initiatives. In this way GlobalPlatform benefits from the output of debate and collaboration between some of the best technical minds in the smart card industry.

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About GlobalPlatform

*2009 is the 10 th anniversary of GlobalPlatform - to learn more about its achievements click here*

GlobalPlatform is the world leader in smart card infrastructure development. Its proven technical specifications for cards, devices and systems are regarded as the industry standard for achieving interoperable, sustainable and flexible smart card deployments that support multi-application, multi-actor and multi-business model implementations.

GlobalPlatform is a member driven association with cross-industry representation from all world continents. As of October 2008, an estimated 305.7 million GlobalPlatform-based smart cards had been deployed globally and an additional two billion mid range USIM/SIM cards worldwide are estimated to use GlobalPlatform card technology to enable over-the-air (OTA) application downloads for 3G and GSM mobile networks. www.globalplatform.org