Emulation of Multi-application Contactless Smartcard in Near Field Communication Enabled Smart Phones

Near Field Communication (NFC) is a short-range wireless technology used to transmit data between two devices. In order to transmit data, NFC has three working modes. The card emulation mode has the greatest potential because it allows a smart phone to emulate passive NFC tags and contactless smart cards. Hence, it enables a smart phone to instantly share data with an NFCenabled by a single tap on the NFC reader. Major applications of the card emulation mode include financial transactions such as purchasing a ticket at bus stop or a cinema hall, etc., so a secure storage space is required to locally store the data. The card emulation mode utilizes a Secure Element (SE) for the secure storage of data, and has no provisions for third party developers to write on this storage. This paper discusses the challenges of implementing card emulation in the Android Operating System for smart phones. Furthermore, emulation of a smart card defined by ISO 7816-4 for multiple application scenarios is discussed. The paper will go into detail regarding the implementation of card emulation mode and how it can help third party applications to read and write to and from SE while maintaining reasonable security. KeywordsNear Field Communication; Secure Element; Smart Card; Software Card Emulation; Two-way Communication; Short Range Wireless Communication