According to Peggy Ritchie-Matsumoto, deputy director of the ODRC's Office of Management Information Systems and a systems strategist, this project, funded by the National Institute of Justice, marries computer chips with photo identification cards. Initially, the cards will be used to track the medication activity of 2,300 inmates in a medium-security men's facility.
"It's like a driver's license with a computer chip in it," Ritchie-Matsu-moto says. "The inmate's photo is electronically stored, as is the data that says who he is and what his inmate number is. When an inmate comes up to the pharmacy, he puts the card into a reader that scans the information on the microchip contained in the card. If I'm the pharmacist, what I see on my computer screen is the inmate's pharmacy record. I know what his history is and what medication he is to have. I'll also know if he has refused meds before, or if he has not picked up his meds. This system will track all that."
According to Ritchie-Matsumoto, a processor and memory chip are embedded in the card, and they have the capacity for offline storage as well as encryption for security. Benefits of the system include an increased ability to manage inmate data and a faster process for dispensing medication. ODRC currently spends one minute per patient dispensing medication. The smart card is expected to reduce the time required to complete this paper-intensive process to a few seconds.
The smart-card project relies on software created by the Battelle Institute, a nonprofit company that works with national security, health, environment, transportation, and industrial technologies. Battelle has been involved with smart-card technologies since 1980. The company helped the U.S. Department of Defense develop electronic dog tags for soldiers in Desert Storm and created a smart card for colleges that deducts purchases from student accounts.
Smart cards can involve several different types of technology and can be issued for a variety of purposes. Some provide access to restricted areas and some are service-related, like telephone calling cards or those that deduct purchases from a holder's account. Some can be used for identification purposes only, while others enable remote payment, money access, and information exchange via computer, telephone, or television "set-top boxes." Biometric information, such as fingerprints, eye scans or "finger geometry," which takesmeasurements of the finger and converts it to a three-dimensional model for matching, can all be used to verify the cardholder's identity.
Smart cards are especially popular in Europe, where manyautomatic tellermachines require a thumb-print for identification. In Australia, where there is a national debit-card system and where noncash payments are growing at about 50 percent each year, smart cards are proliferating rapidly. But to date, the cards have not been as well-received in the United States. When Utah legislators in 1997 talked about implementing a smart-card driver's license, one of the biggest concerns was about the privacy of the data. When New Jersey began considering a smart-card driver's license that would include a fingerprint of the driver, the American Civil Liberties Union protested, and the idea eventually was scraped.
"Privacy issues also figure prominently in discussions about using smart cards for health care," Ritchie-Matsumoto says. "I just don't think the public is ready for a smart card where you walk into a doctor's office and have your whole medical history come up onscreen."
Ritchie-Matsumoto says there is a lot of resistance to smart cards in the general population.
"[That's] why part of the research is happening in closed environments like prisons, universities and in the medical arena," she says. "The public in this country doesn't seem quite ready to have smart cards, but it is definitely where we're going. Pretty soon our computer keyboards will have biometrics built right into them. Even now there is a user-identification device that can be plugged into the keyboard."
Although smart-card technology is still in its infancy in the United States -- Americans bought only 2 percent of the 826 million cards sold worldwide in 1996 -- it is a technology that is gaining popularity. A 1997 conference sponsored by the Smart Card Industry Association boasted 530 exhibitors and 7,500 attendees from 65 countries. Total card sales in the United States are expected to increase as well, rising from 2 percent in 1996 to 15 percent of total worldwide sales by 2000.
According to Ritchie-Matsumoto, the ODRC smart-card project is not just addressing the technical aspects of this technology. Attendant issues also are being considered, such as the legality and acceptability of an electronic signature and the problem of authenticating a pharmacist's signature. The ODRC is working with the Ohio State Pharmacy Board on a feasible solution. Another issue being addressed, she says, concerns inmate reaction to the cards.
"It's difficult to predict. Will they destroy their cards? Will they try to exchange their cards? Will they try to carve the chip out of the cards? If this project is successful and the card becomes so totally integrated that the inmates need it for meals, access to certain areas, or to the commissary, my guess is they won't do anything to damage it," Ritchie-Matsumoto says.
In the early stages, Ritchie Matsumoto says, the smart cards will be integrated with the ODRC's electronic photo-imaging system, so that when the card is used, it will automatically bring up a picture of the inmate on a computer screen. In the future, however, plans are to activate magnetic strips, bar coding and some form of biometric identification. The vision is for a multiuse card that pertains to may aspects of prison life. Inmate classification, medical and mental health information, education status and parole information will be stored on the microchip.
For more information on the project, contact Peggy Ritchie-Matsumoto at
the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, 614/752-1262; or Steve Morrison, program manager, National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Center-Southeast, 800/292-4385.
TechBeat is the flagship publication of the National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Center system. Contact Rick Neimiller, managing editor, by calling 800-248-2742. Writer and contributing editor, Lois Pilant.
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