The Canadian firm has launched a security credential management system service to accelerate the development of smart city and transportation systems
Canadian company BlackBerry has announced the launch of a new service to help the private and public sectors accelerate the development of smart cities and intelligent transportation systems.
Through this new Security Credential Management System (SCMS) service, BlackBerry said it will provide the mechanism for vehicles and infrastructure, such as traffic lights, to exchange information in a secure and private manner using digital certificates.
The recently launched SCMS service is based on BlackBerry’s Certicom technology and offers a secure public key infrastructure (PKI) which can manage certificates on behalf of an organization or an entire ecosystem. The company said that the service is designed to scale to support national and transnational deployments, allowing OEMs and public officials to take advantage of a turnkey cloud-based service for vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2X) certificate issuance and lifecycle management. BlackBerry can also support hybrid SCMS solutions optimized for high-volume vehicle production, the company added.
“The future of autonomous vehicles cannot be realized until intelligent transportation systems are put in place,” said John Chen, executive chairman and CEO of BlackBerry. “By removing barriers such as security, privacy, and cost, we believe our SCMS service will help accelerate the many smart city and connected vehicle pilot programs taking place around the world.”
“Our government is focused on ensuring all Canadians stand to benefit from digital transformation. BlackBerry’s commitment to advancing smart cities is yet another step forward for Canadian innovation,” said Navdeep Bains, Mminister of innovation for science and economic development.
BlackBerry’s new service went through interoperability testing in multiple OmniAir Consortium PlugFests held earlier this year. The company’s first project using the new SCMS service will be in partnership with Invest Ottawa, which will leverage it within a secure 16-kilometer road autonomous vehicle (AV) test track that resembles a miniature city, with pavement markings, traffic lights, stop signs, and pedestrian crosswalks.
“We are delighted to partner with BlackBerry to demonstrate this SCMS service in a variety of V2X applications,” said Kelly Daize, director of the CAV program at Invest Ottawa. “Our integrated public and private AV test tracks are equipped with GPS, DSRC, Wi-Fi, 4G/LTE and 5G, making this the first AV test environment of its kind in North America. We look forward to leveraging the world-class security and analytic capabilities of BlackBerry and making them available to innovators, firms, and regions to accelerate the secure deployment of AVs, Intelligent Transportation Systems, and smart cities,” Daize added.
