Patent ID: 8225386

Claim:
A method for personalizing multi-application smart cards, including: receiving, by an end-user, an anonymous smart card, wherein said anonymous smart card comprises one or more anonymous end-user applications that can be either enabled or disabled depending on whether a use requires a link to an identified end-user, including wherein each of said one or more anonymous end-user applications is disabled for those uses requiring a link to an identified end-user, and wherein each of said one or more anonymous end-user applications is enabled for those uses not requiring a link to an identified end-user, at least one personalized external application, and an end-user-controlled partition that includes a plurality of empty fields for storing user data for an identified end-user; and personalizing, by said end-user, said anonymous smart card by storing user data in said end-user-controlled partition of said smart card, said user data including identifying information for said end-user, wherein said personalizing includes that a unique identifier installed in an internal application is used as a credential for the smart card so that the external application has knowledge about the unique identifier, reading of the unique identifier is disabled when the smart card has been claimed by said end-user and a smart card PIN associated therewith, and the unique identifier is disabled by one of blocking reading of the unique identifier or erasing the unique identifier.