The Canadian mobile phone manufacturer, Research in Motion, announced a new model of the BlackBerry Smart Card Reader compliant with ISO 7816 and is a lightweight and wearable card reader that enables proximity controlled access to a user’s BlackBerry handset.

The card reader has a sleeker design and measures only 3.98 x 2.4 x 0.57 inches and weighting only 2.26 oz. It also features a larger display and backlighting for easier viewing, as well as power management features that can extend battery life between charges.

It also comes with support for a wide range of smart cards. The new BlackBerry Smart Card Reader supports all ISO 7816 compliant smart cards and provides out of the box support for Personal Identity Verification, Common Access Cards and Safenet 330 cards.

The card reader increases security. It uses IT polity controls, BlackBerry smartphones can be configured to lock if the BlackBerry Smart Card Reader goes out of range, rendering the smartphone or computer unusable and information inaccessible until proximity is restored and user authentication requirements have been met.

BlackBerry Smart Card Reader and BlackBerry Enterprise Solution provide advanced security features to meet IT requirements. It comes with an AES-256 encryption overlay for Bluetooth, a FIPS 140-2 validated encryption module, Coverity Certification for Quality Code Level 2 and Secure Code Level 2.

The BlackBerry Smart Card Reader is expected to become available in September.