Patent ID: 7681232

Claim:
A credit card having a card body, which comprises: a fingerprint reading element providing fingerprint signals representative of at least one fingerprint from a card user, when at least one finger of said user is pressed against said fingerprint reading element; a data carrier holding at least card owner fingerprint data and secured data; a readout area; a data processor configured to authenticate said fingerprint signals with said card owner fingerprint data; and an electrical power supply delivering electrical power to at least said fingerprint reading element, said data processor, and said readout area; at least one driver circuit in communication with at least one transducer coil in said readout area including at least one core winding around at least one strip of electromagnetically inducible core material, each strip being individually inducible by said data processor to emit a magnetic field containing secured data signals corresponding to said secured data; and at least one swipe detection sensor configured to detect when said credit card is in the vicinity of a credit card reader and to cause said data processor to activate said secured data by emission of said secured data signals at least once by said at least one transducer coil only when said swipe detector sensor has registered that the credit card is in the vicinity of a credit card reader, the swipe detection sensor including at least one sensor winding provided around one of said strips of electromagnetically inducible core material.