GB2099756A

GB2099756A - Telephone debit card

Info

Publication number: GB2099756A
Application number: GB8117618A
Authority: GB
Original assignee: Standard Telephone and Cables PLC
Current assignee: STC PLC
Priority date: 1981-06-09
Filing date: 1981-06-09
Publication date: 1982-12-15
Also published as: GB2099756B

Abstract

A debit card, such as may be used for operating a public pay telephone consists of a card of a plastics insulating material having embedded in it a number of optical fibres (1) each of which extends between two edges of the card. The fibres are "scrambled" to improve security, and each terminates at one end at a portion (1-10) of the card which is punched out when a unit is used up. There is also a validation fibre (2), which is also broken when the last unit is used up. When the card is read it is not accepted as valid unless this validation fibre (2) passes light. Finally there is a set of other fibres (3), also "scrambled" to convey other data such as unit value. The basic principle can be extended to identify cards or credit cards, in which case no punching out is called for. <IMAGE>

Description

SPECIFICATION Telephone debit card This invention relates to an intelligenceconveying card, such as an identification card, a credit card or a debit card.

Such cards are sometimes verified, or read, by including in the card body a maze-like network of electrical conductors whose pattern is unique to the card's holder, and/or to the service to which it relates. The associated card reader applies electrical voltages to exposed terminals on the card and, in effect, maps the pattern, and accepts the card, and in some cases acts on the intelligence thereon, if the card is found to be correct. In the case of a debit card, a track is provided for each unit, which is cancelled by mechanical or electrical breakdown when that unit is used up. Such an arrangement is not secure as the card is easily forged or revalidated after use, although the method may be satisfactory for credit cards where additional safeguards are provided.

An object of the invention is to provide an intelligence-conveying card which gives a higher degree of security than do the known arrangements.

According to the invention, there is provided an intelligence-conveying card, which includes a sheet-like area on which visual intelligence may be imprinted, and a number of optical fibres embedded in the material of the card, the number and possibly the arrangement of the fibres being such as to represent intelligence, wherein each said fibre has each of its ends terminating at an edge of the card, such that light may be projected into each said fibre from one of its ends and detected as it leaves the other end of that fibre.

Such optical fibres which are embedded in the card, can be spatially scarmbled to ensure a measure of security. The card reader checks that at least one fibre is intact, and then (in the case of a debit card) breaks the appropriate unit fee fibres as appropriate, subsequently checking that the breakage has occurred. A second group of fibres can be used to give supplementary coding, e.g. as to unit value, period of validity etc.

An embodiment of the invention will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which: Fig. 1 is a debit card embodying the invention, Fig. 1 a being an edge-on view of the card, Fig. 1 b a plan view of an unused card, and Fig. 1 C a plan view of a partially used card.

Fig. 2 is a block diagram of a card reading arrangement for cards of the type shown in Fig. 1.

For illustrative purposes the invention is described herein as applied to a ten unit debit card (although more or less, units are feasible), Fig. 1, in which each unit is represented by a single fibre such as 1, the fibres being shown as dashed lines. It will be noted that, in the interest of security these fibres are scrambled as they extend between the sides of the card. To these are added a single fibre 2 to provide validity (which is cancelled together with the last unit fibre), plus up to five fibres which will express factors such as value of each unit, period of validity, etc: these are not necessarily cancelled.

In the example shown there are four such fibres.

More information of this kind can be provided by using additional fibres. The description centres around the system's use with a public payphone but, naturally, the method can be used, with obvious modifications, to pay for any kind of article or service which may be automatically dispensed: typical of these would be car parks, swimming pools, ski lifts, bus tickets, stamps, etc.

Use as an identity card, or pass, without cancellation, could be a further application.

As each unit is used, the fibre appropriate therefor is cancelled, in this case by punching away a portion on the right-hand side of the card: Fig. 1 c shows a card with five units cancelled in this way.

The card is taken into the reader, Fig. 2, by a conventional transport mechanism (not shown), e.g. a pair of rollers, activated when the card is offered to the reader by being mechanically inserted part-way into the slot. The mechanism only operates if the remainder of the system is functioning properly (e.g. the light source is operating). A heavy shutter closes the slot once the card has been accepted and will only be lifted when the card is about to be returned. The card is taken into a reading cradle 10 when one edge is illuminated by a common light source 11, either by "floodlighting" (as shown) or by using optical waveguides to illuminate the ends of the embedded fibres. This light may be steady, but pulsing it offers improvements in respect of power economy and security.

The slot and shutter are schematically illustrated at 12 and 13, and the transport mechanism is shown schematically at 14. The card, properly positioned can be seen at 1 5.

A photo detection means decides whether or not light is coming through the fibres embedded in the card. The necessary photo diodes D1- D10, DA-DV, are mounted at the appropriate places on the far side of the cradle from the light source, but could be mounted elsewhere, light being taken to them via optical fibres which match those embedded in the card. An extra detector DL, which has no matching fibre, is also provided. This receives some light in the absence of a card, which is, however, interrupted when the card is finally in position, giving a further check (additional to any mechanical sensing built into the transport mechanism) that the card has been accepted and is ready to be operated upon.

The light falling on any of the remaining diodes is interrupted when the appropriate fibre is broken.

An alternative arrangement would use individual lamps for each of the fibres, operated sequentially so that only one fibre is iliuminated at any instant. In this case only one photo detector is necessary, it being capable of "seeing" the ends of all the fibres (e.g. via optical waveguides) and the state of any embedded fibre could be detected whether or not a light signal was received during the time slot appropriate to it. This arrangement may also ease the design of the subsequent circuit.

The outputs from the detector D1--D10 for the various units extend to reading circuits 15, from which two outputs extend to control circuits 16. One output 17 conveys an indication as to whether a valid unit is present, while the other output 1 8 indicates the number of such units present. This latter output also controls a display device 19, e.g. a liquid crystal display, which "tells" the user how much credit he has.

The other diodes Dl, DA-DE, DV; feed the validation and other circuits 20. Of these DL is the detector aligned with no fibre, which checks the source when a card is not present and also, since light from the source is interrupted gives an indication as to whether a card is present. DV is a validation input, whose fibre (2 in Fig. 1) is broken when the last unit is exhausted. AD to DE are the detectors for the fibres conveying unit values etc., there being in this case five such fibres.

The validation circuitry 20 advises the reading circuitry as to whether an inserted card is valid, and also over outputs 21 and 22 controls the card transport mechanism 23. If the card is not valid, a signal over output 21 causes card ejection, which includes operation of the shutter mechanism 24. If the card is valid, a signal over output 22 operates the mechanism 23 to allow the card to be dealt with. The mechanism 23 itself sends a signal on a connection 25 when the card is first inserted to indicate that a card is on offer.

When the control circuits 16 are satisfied that a valid card has been inserted, a "card OK" signal is sent over output 30 to the telephone system as a result of which the latter proceeds with the call.

When a unit has been used up, a signal is sent from the telephone system over connection 31 to the control circuit 16, and this, via the connections shown operates the cancellation circuits 32 to connect one unit. This it does via a ten-fold punch 33, which is caused to punch off the next uncancelled portion of the card-see Fig. 1.

When the call is completed a further signal from the telephone system over connection 34 causes, via control circuits 1 6 and transport mechanism 23, the ejection of the card from the reader. However, if the control circuits 1 6 detect, in response to its inputs from the reading circuits and the telephone system that the credit on the card has been exhausted, it causes the mechanism 23 to eject the call, and signals over the connections 36 to the telephone system that the credit on the card is used up, and that the call should be terminated.

Thus by examining the light emergent from the fibre ends, a simple logic circuit decides: whether the card is genuine or not, the value of each of the encoded units, whether at least one unit is still valid, and possibly also how many units remain valid. It then instructs the telephone system accordingly: the call is placed and when established, the system instructs the reader to cancel the first available valid unit. After checking the success of the cancellation, the call proceeds in the usual way, a further unit being cancelled at the end of each charge interval, until the conversation is completed or all the units are consumed. Cancellation of the last unit also breaks the validity fibre, read by DV, which renders the card useless.

The transport mechanism is then activated, the slot opened and the card returned to the user.

Indication may be given to the user of the current value of the card at any instant by the display, e.g.

a liquid crystal display. Various options are open for the punch mechanism: we have assumed a series of fixed punches, one per unit, the appropriate one being activated to cancel the first available unit. Alternatively, a single punch could be provided which is physically transported along the card until it finds the first available valid unit, which it cancels.

Each of the units on a card is assumed to be of the same value, although various types of cards can be produced, differing by the number of units provided, or by the unit's value. The differences in such cases are signalled by the combination of "value" fibres. In another arrangement some of the units might have different values from others-a fact again signalled by the "value" fibres, which is useful if the card is used for longdistance calls where the minimum charge might be quite high.

A different reading mechanism can use only one lamp and one detector past which the card is mechanically transported, together with a single fixed punch. After acceptance of the card, it is passed through a reader in a series of steps each corresponding to the nominal position of a fibre.

The first few steps give information concerning validity and value, and the stepping process continues until the first valid unit is found: it then stops. This unit is cancelled by the punch when so instructed by the telephone system: after checking for a successful cancellation, the stepping mechanism moves the card on to the next valid unit, where it awaits either an instruction to punch or to eject the card.

In some fields of application it may be desirable to provide facilities for season ticket holders, as well as for casual users who would pay on use. Such a season ticket, or the related "identity card" facility, can be provided by a card with only value and validity fibres, the appropriate grouping being evident to the reader, which provides the service without attempting to perform any cancellation action. The coding can readily indicate the period of validity.

It is possible to read such a card outside the case of the reader, via a transparent window, but it is not practicable to break the fibre under these conditions except by using an unacceptably high level of thermal radiation. However, there are other techniques for value coding which are capable of external reading/cancellation: "external" versions of the fibre maze might be used with some of these to provide a validation field or to add security.

Claims

1. An intelligence-conveying card, which includes a sheet-like area on which visual intelligence may be imprinted, and a number of optical fibres embedded in the material of the card, the number and possibly the arrangement of the fibres being such as to represent intelligence, wherein each said fibre has each of its ends terminating at an edge of the card, such that light may be projected into each said fibre from one of its ends and detected as it leaves the other end of that fibre.

2. A card as claimed in claim 1, wherein the card is rectangular and each said fibre extends between a pair of parallel edges of the card.

3. A card as claimed in claim 2, wherein the order in which the fibre ends appear at one side of the card differ from the order in which the other ends of the fibre appear at the other side of the card.

4. A card as claimed in claim 1,2 or 3, wherein a first number of said fibres corresponds to debitable units, and wherein at least one fibre is a validation fibre such that the card is only accepted as valid if light is detected as having traversed that fibre.

5. A card as claimed in claim 4, wherein a further group of fibres is provided, the arrangement thereof corresponding to additional information such as the value of the units.

6. A card as claimed in claim 4 or 5, wherein each said fibre of the first number terminates at a portion of one edge of the card which is punched out when the unit to which it relates has been consumed, which punching breaks that fibre, and wherein said validation fibre is located as to be also broken when the fibre for the last unit is broken.

7. An intelligence-conveying card, substantially as described with reference to Fig. 1 of the accompanying drawings.

8. A card reader for a card as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 7, and which includes a light source arranged to feed light to first ends of the fibres, detection means responsive to light leaving the other ends of the fibres, and control circuits responsive to the results of said card reading.

New Claims or Amendments to Claims filed on 8 April 82 New or Amended Claims:-

9. A debit card, which includes a sheet-like area on which visual intelligence may be imprinted, and a number of optical fibres embedded in the material of the card, the number and possibly the arrangement of the fibres being such as to represent intelligence, wherein each said fibre has each of its ends terminated at an edge of the card so that light may be projected into each said fibre from one of its ends and detected as it leaves the other end of that fibre, wherein the said fibres include a number of fibres which correspond to debitable units and at least one of the fibres is a validation fibre such that the card is only accepted as valid if light is detected as having traversed that fibre, wherein each of the fibres which represents a said debitable unit has one of its ends terminating at a portion of one edge of the card which is punched out when the unit to which it relates has been consumed, which punching breaks that fibre, and wherein said validation fibre is located as to be also broken when the fibre for the last debitable unit is broken.

10. A debit card as claimed in claim 9, wherein a further group of fibres is provided, the arrangement thereof corresponding to additional information such as the value of the units.