SanDisk has just unveiled a WORM (write-once, read mostly) variant of the ubiquitous SD Flash memory card that’s intended for applications where stored data must be tamper-proof and unalterable. Such situations include video, image, audio and other forms of legal evidence; business and tax records; voting records; and medical records. In all such cases, all parties must believe that the data is exactly as it should be and that there’s no chance that it’s been tampered with. Lives and careers are at stake in most of these applications. The WORM SD card looks like a conventional SD card but it will only work in specially configured SD card writers. Any SD card reader can read one of these WORM SD cards.

Currently, the SanDisk site points to an OEM sales email address for anyone interested in this technology. However, SanDisk may be ignoring (or at least momentarily ignoring) a large number of amateur and pro photographers who might well want to use their SD cards like film, with no possibility of image erasure. With the cost of SD card storage so low, it’s already much cheaper than film ever was per image, so that it’s now quite realistic to think of using write-once Flash media that can never, ever be erased, no matter how hard you try.