Data communicating apparatus and method for managing memory of data communicating apparatus

Abstract

An IC card has a mechanism to securely manage information for each of a plurality of service providers in a memory area of the IC card. The IC card is shared by the plurality of service providers. File systems of the service providers are allocated in the memory area, and a single information recording medium is shared by the plurality of service providers. The memory area is separated into the file systems. A border between the file systems functions as a firewall, thus appropriately preventing one of the file systems from being intruded by the other file systems. Furthermore, by using a function of separating the memory area into a plurality of file systems together with a security code verification function of each file system, the security of each file system is independently managed.

1 . A data communication apparatus, comprising:
 a first memory area managed by a first file system;   a second memory area managed by a second file system different from the first file system; and   a controller configured to control access to the first and second memory areas and to release access to the first memory area if access to the second memory area is permitted.