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Smart cards use flash memory to store a variety of information, such as such as medical records, digital cash, authentication and identification.

This technology is far more widely deployed in Europe and Asia than the United States, where magnetic strips—like the one on the back of your credit card—still predominate.

Nonetheless, smart cards have found a niche in government and corporate circles.

Those are the markets Research In Motion (RIM) is targeting with the announcement of its new BlackBerry Smart Card Reader, due for beta release in July. The chief aim of this product is to enable government and enterprise customers to more easily leverage smart card security when away from headquarters.

Here's how it works:

The BlackBerry Smart Card Reader itself is a lightweight and wearable device that connects wirelessly to Bluetooth-enabled BlackBerries (such as the 7250 and 7290). Information sent from the reader—contained on a smart card, of course—to a BlackBerry is secured through AES-256 encryption. As a FIPS 140-2 validated device, the reader complies with certain government and corporate security requirements.

BlackBerry Smart Card Reader provides support for a variety of industry standard smart cards, including the US Department of Defense's Common Access Card. The BlackBerry Smart Card Reader also supports S/MIME and can be used in conjunction with the S/MIME Support Package v4.0 for BlackBerry.

Director of Wireless Integration Services at SRA International—the consulting firm that will work with RIM to deploy the reader within government organizations—Jean-Paul Boucher exclaims, "Security is a top priority for our government clients, and the BlackBerry Smart Card Reader will offer a secure mobile experience for public sector organizations using smart cards for identification and authentication, such as the Department of Defense Common Access Card."

SRA and RIM assert other solutions to enable mobile wireless smart card access are often cumbersome, whereas their's is lightweight and portable.

"The BlackBerry Smart Card Reader will be an attractive choice for those organizations that require smart card support and want a less bulky and more user-friendly solution," says to RIM CEO Don Morrison.