Size matters to Mexican customs officials. Border agents are charged with monitoring the comings and goings of trade traffic at 27 different points spread across 2,000 miles while keeping track of arcane commerce quotas. The daunting task of gathering the information and cross-referencing it took reams of papers and megabytes of hard-disk space –- until now.
A new relational database system for smart cards -- called SQL Smart Card -- is diminishing some of the paperwork. That makes the border seem smaller for agents. They can now carry reader devices that display and record information from a card and synchronize the data between different computers. The smartcard database runs on a variety of machines, ranging from palmtop computers to desktop PCs.
"You have a database function in your desktop, but you can also take the database with you on the smart card," noted Lionel Carrasco, senior vice president of business development and product strategy for Centura Technology. "So you can have 100 records in 10 kilobytes of data."
The SQL Smart Card system uses an advanced compression method to shrink the size of the data before transferring it to the card itself. The method searches for elements such as repeated words, and then leaves the first reference and uses a coded substitute of SQL commands for the rest.
Smartcards have generally been slow to catch on in the United States. To succeed, a smartcard needs to offer several applications and keep data secure. Carrasco is confident that SQL Smart Card will fill the bill.
At the heart of the card is a standard relational-database interface that any programmer familiar with SQL could program. The card is based on SQLBase, a core product of Centura's predecessor, database-maker Gupta Corp. By using standard database-programming interfaces, the system lets developers write applications in the common tools of their trade, including Visual Basic.
The card also goes to great lengths to secure transactions. Carrasco said the SQL Smart Card system uses as many as seven layers of security that vary according to the type of institution, the transaction involved, and the country using the technology. The system will be able to support the encryption that comes with Microsoft's Windows NT, RSA, and other known forms of cryptography, as well as proprietary systems. Due to export restrictions on cryptography imposed by the US government, however, the SQL Smart Card does not have a set encryption mechanism.
"The card is impossible to hack and duplicate, it's so secure," Carrasco claimed.
Security is what officials in Mexico's commerce department sought when they decided to centralize and automate their trade-tracking system. The vast border, multiple checkpoints, and hefty paperwork made monitoring trade quotas a daunting task.
"People counterfeit papers, and papers take a long time to process," explained Eduardo Honey, an official with the department who is leading the pilot project to automate trade tracking.
Honey said the smartcard technology allows agents to process importers' papers in a matter of minutes, instead of days. The records are easily accessible by agents at all 27 stations along the border and also by officials at the commerce department in Mexico City.
The records help the agents track the travels of importers, the quantity of goods they wish to transport, plus identifying information for the border station and agent. On the smartcard held by the importer, the system keeps a running tab on the amount of goods that can be brought in. For each transaction, the system looks up the quota for the importer and deducts the amount of the shipment.
Such functions are essential. The border stations handle roughly 87 percent of all trade between the United States and Mexico, an amount worth US$137 billion in 1997, according to Duane W. Burdorf, director for the Texas Center for Border Economic and Enterprise Development.
"Technology like this would help reduce the element of surprise for the commerce department," Burdorf said.
This element of surprise can stem from many sources when officials have to adhere to import-export regulations that can vary by product and time of year. For example, Mexico was recently allowed to import avocados into the United States, but with severe restrictions. It can only import to 19 northern states in the winter time. Reconciling these types of rules and the transactions is likely to become easier with a system like SQL Smart Card, said Burdorf.
"Part of the value is that the commerce department now knows the number of ears of corn imported on any given day," noted Carrasco.
