scope:

This standard defines a common set of Application Programming Interface (API) functions to access the WIC benefits on an integrated circuit (smart) card in the retailer environment; a common method (card discovery mechanism) to identify the issuer of the WIC EBT benefits and the WIC EBT scheme present on the smart card and, an interface to the card reader device that transmits and receives data from the WIC EBT smart card. The reference or model implementation provided by the WIC State Agency shall utilize this standard. This standard does not specify the reader driver used by the retailer application but it defines interfaces that may be implemented for the WIC module to access functions of the Reader Driver Module (RDM). The specific requirements of the Reader Driver Interface to the integrated circuit (smart) card are dependent on the card design chosen by the WIC State Agency and may be obtained from them.

The use of pseudo Interface Definition Language (IDL) in this standard allows simpler definition of the API functions and their interface in a language independent manner. This standard does not define how WIC-EBT benefits are arranged on the card, the movement of security data or key management.