The likelihood of a cashless society has been increasing in the past few years. Although, the technology is available it had yet to be used on a large-scale for cashless purposes. But, the major concern about smart cards is security, because people believe confidential material could be viewed and used by the wrong party.
Smart cards are wallet sized cards that contain a computer chip and can perform multiple functions.
The chip can store and process data and it works by operatiing with a device called a card reader. Most smart cards must touch the card reader to be used, but some smart cards don't require contact with the reader. The two types of contactless smart cards are short range which use eletricity to connect the card with the reader and long range which use an outside power source that sends radio signals to the card. For instance, if someone stole a smart card and tried to use it with a biometric system, it would not work because only the card owner's characteristics work with the card. In the U.S., biometric devices are used at 20,000 locations such as banks, and guarding computer rooms and vaults and as of last year, fingerprint matching was one of the two financial applications in this country that was active, although more are in development.