What is this port?

[Fragdog]

Alright, so I like to think of myself as a techy. I know my way around computers quite well, but this has got me stumped.

My aunt's workplace started replacing some of their old tech, so she gave me a couple of the business grade laptops they were using - HP Elitebook 2540p. Pretty neat laptops, a well needed upgrade to my Toshiba Tecra M5.

Anyway, I was looking at it the other day and I noticed a little slit on the left side, above where the DVD drive or SSD tray goes.
It looked roughly credit card sized, so being full of curiosity, I grabbed an old school ID and slid it into the slit in the laptop. It fit perfectly in width, and as I slide it in, it feels like there's some kind of gizmo that holds onto the card with friction, and possibly has some kind of card scanning technology.
When fully inserted, the card sticks out the side by about 1.5cm.

I looked on the product page on the HP website, and there is no mention of this port/slit/thing anywhere.
Looking at the drivers download page, I saw "HP Business Card Scanner", but in reality, that function relies on the standard camera on top of the monitor.

Any ideas?

 

[TechyInAZ]

Must be a card reader then, never heard of them being on laptops though huh.

 

[Fragdog]

Scratch that, after further investigation, I found the documentation that labels it as an "integrated smart card reader".

Sounds like it might be fun to play around with. Just gotta get some smart cards now.