WRITTEN ON February 27th, 2008 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Foundation of Trust, Identity, What do we want?

We’ve always backed the Germans to take their time but probably get it right. Now Dave points out that the new German smart ID card will support pseudonyms (see letter from Interior Minister August Hanning to FDP home affairs Gisela Piltz – in German) . The e-health Europe site has picked this up:

The German Home Office has confirmed that a new electronic identity card for German citizens will incorporate the use of pseudonyms for secure web access.

According to the plans of the German Home Office, a credit card sized electronic identity card will be introduced in 2009. It will replace the larger, non-electronic identity cards currently in use. “Apart from the usual personal information, the electronic identity card will contain biometric information, in particular digital fingerprints of both index fingers, and additional information for facial recognition”, says secretary of state August Hanning.

Hanning confirmed that the new identity card will contain a pseudonym function. In a leaked letter to Gisela Piltz, a Member of German Parliament for the Liberal Democrats (FDP), Hanning stated that the card could be used as a “passport for the internet” in the future. “The new identity card offers the possibility of an electronic identity proof for E-Government- and E-Business-applications”, writes Hanning.

The central idea is that the individual card number is used to generate a pseudonym that cannot be reconverted mathematically into the original card number. This pseudonym could then be used to register at, for example, eBay, or any other web service that requires personal identification.

There’s a Wibbi in here somewhere. I think it’s “wouldn’t it be better if ze Britische ID System supported unlinkable pseudonyms and were minimal in what it itself recorded, ie just a number and a biometric whose sole purpose is to ensure that number is unique.”