Smart card

A plastic card containing important data about a person's identity to allow access to a network or premises. Also, a card containing subscriber information, often inserted into GSM phones for roaming in different countries. (Cingular)

A credit card-like device capable of storing and transferring information regarding the card's user to data devices and to data networks. Smart Cards come in several forms and have different uses, e.g., a SIM card is a form of Smart Card. The other important use of Smart Cards is as extra secure credit cards to enable secure online transactions from mobile devices. Unlike a standard credit card that uses just a magnetic strip to store information, a Smart Card has a tiny processor, file system and memory - which means greater security for e-commerce transactions. Typically, this type of Smart Card is issued by a bank. (Motorola)

A smart card, chip card, or integrated circuit(s) card (ICC), is defined as any pocket-sized card with embedded integrated circuits. Although there is a diverse range of applications, there are two broad categories of ICCs. Memory cards contain only non-volatile memory storage components, and perhaps some specific security logic. Microprocessor cards contain memory and microprocessor components.

The standard perception of a "smart card" is a microprocessor card of credit card dimensions (or smaller, e.g. the GSM SIM card) with various tamper-resistant properties (e.g. a secure crypto-processor, secure file system, human-readable features) and is capable of providing security services (e.g. confidentiality of information in the memory). Not all chip cards contain a microprocessor (eg. the memory cards), therefore not all chip cards are necessarily also smart cards. However the public usage of the terminology is often inconsistent.

(Wikipedia)