Federal Council approves electronic ID card.

After the passport is now the card electronically, so digital. From November 2010 replaces a card earlier forms. But it has in itself: Biometric characteristics and an identity for the Internet are part of the concept.

 

Berlin - The new electronic passport in card format is decided upon. The Federal Council decided on Friday without debate, the law adopted by the Bundestag approved. In an integrated chip is a digital passport photo is stored.

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Part of the concept are also controversial, electronically read out biometric identification: the start of two fingerprints, which, however, you must not submit. The biometric identifier will be - unlike the electronic passport - so far only on a voluntary basis.

The biometric identifier is used primarily in the collection of interconnected national and international databases. The trend has been enforced in the wake of the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. "Terrorists and criminals will not succeed with forged travel documents or the genuine documents of a person, they look very similar to, enter," says the Interior Ministry, the biometric features of the so-called ePass to an information page. "The chip in the ePass is an additional hurdle for counterfeiters. The biometric features in the chip can be examined in future machines."

Biometrics is the trend

Unlike the identity card is the German electronic passport implementation of an EU regulation from 2004. They obliged, inter alia, to collect the fingerprints. When identity cards used within the EU as a travel document is sufficient, that regulation is not at hand: Discussions on the pros and cons of biometric personal papers led to the only voluntary inclusion of appropriate characteristics.

However, the digital image of the card already in place for the collection of biometric features optimized. Medium-term planning security authorities, for example through biometric analysis of images from security cameras and synchronized with the staff through the papers emerging databases on the characteristics of people searches and safety checks to automate and optimize. Previous experiments showed that this technique is not yet ripe, they produce too many errors. The medium could ePass and identity to include more biometric features to be extended, such as data for iris scans.

Has been criticized in the run-up of data protection and hackers that the electronic identity card because of the contactless RFID chips, that is also from a distance can be read. With this information, argue the proponents of the concept, but could not start because they were encrypted. The claim that such a reading was in the case of the electronic passport impossible, however, was already a year after its introduction in 2005 by a hacker refuted. The electronic identity card is planned for November 2010 be issued.

Made palatable to the citizens through the identification of useful features like the possibility of online banking and Internet shopping through a reliable authentication easier and safer. With the appropriate technical equipment, the new identity of the sending credit card numbers, passwords or PIN numbers to replace. Moreover, the card - the small, but probably also more expensive than before, - on request with an electronic signature be equipped with such sale or official requests via the Internet can be signed. These features, however, are charged, their activation can be done for an additional fee.