This ought to take away a lot of the insecurity potential users may have with FeliCa.

Sony Corporation announced o­n July 13th that the company's "FeliCa" contactless IC technology supports VeriSign Japan's certificate of issue service, "VeriSign Managed PKI service." Cards featuring this new function will be sold as a "FeliCa PKI Option" beginning in 2005, and after converting it into a card and adding network support, is scheduled to support employment verification, student identification, and banking operations. Both of the companies plan to partake in a cooperative industry for the sale and marketing of the cards, and will begin above-mentioned services; the companies will also cooperate in other categories and overseas expansion.

This new card is a "Dual Interface IC" jointly developed by Sony and Germany's Infineon Technologies AG. When this IC is used, FeliCa offers two interfaces; both contactless and contacting, and o­ne card function can be hardwired.

With this development, RSA password operation processing is now possible; with previous cards that housed electronic certificates and secret keys, this was not supported. So, apart from the electronic money, employment verification, and riding tickets, etc. that are already offered, SSL client certification, mail encryption, VPN, and wireless LAN certification can be used with the services offered by VeriSign's certificates.

Inspired by:
http://enterprise.watch.impress.co.jp/cda/topic/2004/07/13/2833.html

Press Release:
http://www.sony.co.jp/SonyInfo/News/Press/200407/04-0713/