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Unified EU electronic identity card
- esbranson 13y agoIts the first step to the EU mandatory-sex-offender-registry-for-everyone that most continental Europeans call the "resident register" or "population register". For all you uninformed, that's where you must register with the police whenever you stay someplace. (Which is why I'm so derisive.) And they are starting to use national ID cards for this purpose now. So in that respect this makes perfect sense. An electronic EU ID makes (for example) mandatory registration with the police so much easier. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resident_registration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resident_registration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resident_registration_in_Russia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resident_registration_in_Russi... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propiska_in_the_Soviet_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propiska_in_the_Soviet_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hukou_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hukou_system (Note the latter systems are your ID.)
- ozh 13y agoThe FAQ is really helpful: "Will it hurt our privacy? No" Oh, OK then.
- QuadDamaged 13y agoYou can't hurt what's already dead.
- nodata 13y agoIt's a QAA (quickly answered answer).
- c_plus_minus 13y ago"A proposition for a standard digital signature in every EU citizen's identity card. .... No extra cards - it will just replace your existing ID card when it expires" Well unlike most of the continent, Britain and Ireland have no mandatory I.D. card (thankfully) so this doesn't cover the whole EU...
- xerophtye 13y agoI thought UK wasn't part of EU in the first place.... (Hence it DOES cover all of EU, no?)
- DangerousPie 13y agoThey are (for now). They are just not part of the Euro or Schengen.
- johnchristopher 13y agoNo, they managed to have a say on Schengen without actually being supportive of it. http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/;jsessionid=y2tmTWzpMz4Ztc680Rr1RVJ4CTWtqZcyk52qczfDhcptLClbGVN8!1663640074?uri=CELEX:32000D0365 http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/;jsessionid=y2... > The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland shall participate in the following provisions of the Schengen acquis: (etc.)
- adamnemecek 13y agoIt's a part of EU, it's not a part of the Eurozone though.
- sdrinf 13y agoIt's... complicated. See The European Union Explained* for how deep that rabbit hole is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O37yJBFRrfg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O37yJBFRrfg
- femto 13y agoIt's part of the EU, but not part of the common currency (Euro).
- ekianjo 13y ago> It will preserve privacy - no one can trace when and how citizens use their identity cards. Haha. I like such statements, and I'm waiting for the first massive leak years down the road.
- bozho 13y agoRead about "anonymous credentials"
- Torn 13y agoDo you have any more information? At the moment it looks like a design project showcase with a few links to wikipedia.
- zokier 13y ago> At the moment it looks like a design project showcase with a few links to wikipedia. Because that is exactly what this is. This is just an unofficial proposal by some random guy: "Page created by Bozhidar Bozhanov".
- abritishguy 13y agoI fully support something like this, but it should be optional.
- xerophtye 13y agoReminds me of Estonia http://www.bhorowitz.com/estonia_the_little_country_that_cloud http://www.bhorowitz.com/estonia_the_little_country_that_clo...
- bergie 13y agoWe had these electronic identity cards in Finland for quite a while, but I think they've been considered a failure: It was initially planned as a general network authentication device for both public and private sector strong authentication needs. In 2009, however, the card was viewed by a government committee as a failure. There has been less than 300000 cards around by 2011 out of population of 5.3 million. The rationale to apply for a card has mostly been traveling abroad. Only few dozen government services have adopted it, and only one bank adopted it as login card to their netbank. All banks in Finland use a national standard called TUPAS, which uses one-time passwords. Banks also provide TUPAS authentication to other Internet-enabled businesses. Since TUPAS requires no dedicated hardware, cost of a card reader and card itself have been main causes in the failure of the eID card. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_identity_card http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_identity_card The problem is simply that smart card readers never got integrated into computers, and people didn't want to buy a USB dongle for that just to be able to authenticate with some government websites. Instead, what happened was that the two-factor authentication system provided by banks became the dominant "secure authentication" method. By now it is supported by most sites that need such a thing, like banks, insurance companies, postal services, and several government sites. I can for example authenticate with my bank user credentials to file my taxes (or could, when I was still living in Finland). An additional benefit of the ID card is that you can use it for travel inside the European Economic Area. But I'll rather carry my passport with me, as that way I don't have to wonder whether the ID card is enough for my itinerary or not. edit: ID cards are valid travel documents inside EEA (which is a larger area than Schengen)
- kitd 13y ago> Since TUPAS requires no dedicated hardware ... Can you explain this bit? My bank here in the UK has an OTP mechanism for internet access, but it uses a small key generator card provided to each customer, controlled by a PIN on each use. Does the TUPAS card itself generate the key?
- bergie 13y agoThink of TUPAS like OAuth/FB Connect as envisioned by banks. Typically TUPAS uses a printed card of single-use passwords. Here in Germany you instead get an SMS with a single-use password every time you have to authenticate (for example, to pay a bill). As an alternative German banks also provide smart card reading OTP generators that interface with your bank card: https://www.sparkassen-shop.de/sfp/shop/tan-generatoren,375/ https://www.sparkassen-shop.de/sfp/shop/tan-generatoren,375/ In Finland universities also have the need for federated authentication, as students can take courses in different schools. Instead of TUPAS they standardized on Shibboleth and SAML.
- blueskin_ 13y agoSome EU countries don't have an ID card, e.g. the UK. Edit: Just saw it's some eurocrat's proposal, thankfully not an actual new imposed law. Not that it really matters once the referendum comes up as the UK will likely be out of the EU after that.
- bergie 13y agoWhat is the problem with the idea of an ID card? There are situations where you need to prove your identity, and a government-supplied card can be useful in those cases. The alternative is using a driver's license or a passport, both of which are also cards (or booklets), and government-supplied. It is not like you'd be forced to get one, or carry it around. Finland has had ID cards as long as I can remember, and I never had to get one. I had my passport stolen once, and identifying myself to the government to be able to get a new one was a bit of a pain in the ass, since I didn't have any other valid national ID (driver's license isn't considered one). The alternative way of authenticating involved maybe fifteen minutes of questions like What was your street address in 1987?
- davidvaughan 13y ago"What is the problem with the idea of an ID card?" In my view, the problem is that it increases the government's power over citizens. Much government is useful and good, but it's an ineluctable law that powers are abused. ID cards extend the territory on which the abuse of power can play out.
- bergie 13y agoIn this case the power is "we can prove that you're a citizen of country X". Unless ID cards come coupled with mandatory carrying of them, I don't see an issue here. As long as countries provide services (like, say healthcare), there are valid reasons for needing to prove your nationality every now and then.
- blueskin_ 13y ago
- Pirate-of-SV 13y agoIt's still a card. Why not go for a full software solution as the one used by banks and government agencies in Sweden?[1] [1](http://www.bankid.com/en/what-is-bankid/ http://www.bankid.com/en/what-is-bankid/)
- 1ris 13y agoIn germany we have the EPA or nPA or how this is called. Thank god we can opt out the functionality of these features. Good luck proving you didn't electrically sign that contract. Forget decrypting pay-TV this is the new shit.
- xerophtye 13y agoI thought it was easier to replicate handwritten signatures than digital ones, no?
- 1ris 13y agoProbably, but I'd be pretty easy to convince a court you did not actually transferrer your life time savings to Belarus because it is known that handwritten signatures are weak. But courts have idiotic trust in technology. They accept the output of anti privacy program as a proof.
- jmnicolas 13y agoI can't wait to be added to yet another database ... I wonder what countries are left where you can mind your own business without being tagged like some vulgar cattle.
- DCKing 13y agoThe description of this card's features are a little too basic to my taste. Based on the "anonymous credentials" they mention it seems to imply that they're using attribute-based cryptography* to preserve privacy, which would be awesome. Can anybody shed some extra light on this? * = See https://www.irmacard.org/ https://www.irmacard.org/. It allows your card to reliably answer questions like "Am I allowed to enter this country?" and "Am I old enough to buy liquor?" without you having to communicate all your personal data (like full name, exact age, exact country of origin) to the party who needs to check it. In fact, that party would not even be able to gain more information. It just communicates parts of your identity on a need-to-know basis.
- sergiosgc 13y agoPortugal already has these. Our ID card is a smartcard, and contains a personal X.509 certificate, issued by a national certificate authority (and a bunch more stuff, like my address or photo). You can use a card reader and standard software to sign legally valid documents. You can login into government websites with it. I'd wager about 80% of ID cards already use the new model. It looks like this:http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_4kQttk9aLQI/TT7-nale3lI/AAAAAAAAACE/ebQLh6RFrNI/s320/CartaoCidadao_f%255B1%255D.jpg http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_4kQttk9aLQI/TT7-nale3lI/AAAAAAAAAC... Its site is: http://www.cartaodecidadao.pt http://www.cartaodecidadao.pt
- bozho 13y agoUnfortunately, there are too few countries. Portugal, Spain, Estonia, Finland, Belgium, India and a few more. Everyone solves the problem in their own way, sometimes incompatible with the others, and not taking into account all privacy concerns. Hence my suggestion for a standard, interoperable solution
- zokier 13y agoNote: This is just a page created by a random guy on the internet, with no connection to any official EU entity or authority.