ISO 21549-6:2008 is applicable to situations in which administrative data are recorded on or transported by patient healthcards compliant with the physical dimensions of ID-1 cards defined by ISO/IEC 7810.

ISO 21549-6:2008 specifies the basic structure of the data contained within the data object administrative data, but does not specify or mandate particular data sets for storage on devices.

The detailed functions and mechanisms of the following services are not within the scope of this ISO 21549-6:2008, although its structures can accommodate suitable data objects elsewhere specified:

• the encoding of free text data;
• security functions and related services that are likely to be specified by users for data cards depending on their specific application, e.g. confidentiality protection, data integrity protection, and authentication of persons and devices related to these functions;
• access control services that may depend on active use of some data card classes such as microprocessor cards;
• the initialization and issuing process, which begins the operating lifetime of an individual data card, and by which the data card is prepared for the data to be subsequently communicated to it according to this part of ISO 21549.