ISO/IEC 7816-4:2013 is intended to be used in any sector of activity. It specifies:

a) contents of command-response pairs exchanged at the interface,

b) means of retrieval of data elements and data objects in the card,

c) structures and contents of historical bytes to describe operating characteristics of the card,

d) structures for applications and data in the card, as seen at the interface when processing commands,

e) access methods to files and data in the card,

f) a security architecture defining access rights to files and data in the card,

g) means and mechanisms for identifying and addressing applications in the card,

h) methods for secure messaging,

i) access methods to the algorithms processed by the card. It does not describe these algorithms.

It does not cover the internal implementation within the card or the outside world.

ISO/IEC 7816-4:2013 is independent from the physical interface technology. It applies to cards accessed by one or more of the following methods: contacts, close coupling and radio frequency. If the card supports simultaneous use of more than one physical interface, the relationship between what happens on different physical interfaces is out of the scope of ISO/IEC 7816-4:2013.