The Spanish social Security Card Project consists of issuing a smart card for the entire Spanish population (approx. 37,000,000 inhabitants) along a five year period. The objectives of the card are:

- Identify citizens vis-a-vis Social Security.

- Provide access to information.

- Reduce irregular situations and ease the supervision of the services (Ministry of Labour and Social Security transacts services for over $60 billion)

The card selected for the field trial contains a microprocessor and a multiplication operating system with 3 KBytes of EEPROM which allows the storage of personal data required by the Social Security and Health System. The Social Security Card Project integrates numerous Spanish public administration bodies belonging not only to the Ministry of Labour and social Security, but also to health administration. Its budget is of over $300 million. In addition, project will include the installation of terminal for information, self-service mode, throughout the offices network (over 3.000 Points of Information) and LAN PCs for health care management in the health care centers (over 20.000 PCs). Citizen’s identification will be made by mean of fingerprint biometric recognition. The pilot phase, already completed, has consisted of issuing 5000,000 cards do the population in Cordoba and of installing the terminals and PoI’s needed in that city. It has already showed the significant advantages and benefits that will be obtained. Among them we should point out a very fast payback thanks to the fraud reduction that will be achieved. Massive issue of cards will start by the end of this year.