Promising Secure Element Alternatives for NFC Technology

In 2004, the Near Field Communication (NFC) forum was formed to promote and supervise the use of the NFC technology. Nowadays, 150 members are taking part init and a growing number of stakeholders are fully involved in the development of this emerging technology. Consequently, many pilots have been launched worldwide in order to test and improve it. Issues related to the level of security that should be provided by the NFC handset to store personal data and application in a safe place have then arisen. Indeed, multiple secure element alternatives, depending on the position of secure element in the handset can be considered and NFC stakeholders encounter difficulties to define which of them should be favored. After giving a brief overview over the NFC technology, the role,as well as the possible position of the secure element in the NFC enabled handset will be highlighted. Then, a discussion will be engaged in order to define what could be the most promising secure element alternatives. Afterwards, by focusing on NFC pilots in which our laboratory is taking part into, this paper will describe technical architectures currently in use. Finally, a conclusion on the topic will be provided in the last section.