Introduction

The Java Smart Card Middleware Android API is part of the Idopte Smart Card Middleware product, which provides standard interfaces for accessing smart cards or cryptographic tokens from applications (PKCS#11 library, Microsoft CSP and smart card mini-driver, Apple TokenD and CryptoTokenKit token driver, …).

There is, however, no standard way to access cryptographic resources from smart card hardware from an application running on an Android phone. Tha SCM Android API provides all required entry points to solve this problem. It provides functionalities similar to those offered by the PKCS#11 interface (enumerating card readers, objects in the cards, manipulating pins and objects, and performing cryptographic operations). This API is designed to be as close as possible to the standard Java APIs, and integrates well with the Java Cryptography Architecture.