COUNTRY FOCUS
a mobile identification is a secure
credential delivered by a government
to the smartphone of a citizen. These
mobile IDs are in fact all-in-one
applications for receiving the credential
securely in the smartphone, saving it
securely in the smartphone, and being
able to present it with the highest level
of privacy protection to any authority
as required. Such mobile identifications
will coexist with their physical versions
for some time to come, and are not
necessarily meant to replace them in the
short term.
and the technology partnerships to
make this happen.
The benefits of this innovation are twofold, for the citizen and the government.
Citizens can carry multiple digital
identifications on their smartphones
without managing the physical
versions, since the smartphone is now
almost ubiquitous for everyone. For
the government, issuing the digital
identification version implies a much
better process of delivery to the citizen,
timely reissue on expiry, and reduction
of fraud around ownership and forgery.
However there is more to digital
identifications residing in smartphones
than merely having a digital version of it
stored in the smartphone.
According to HID Global, a leading
vendor in secure identity solutions,
www.intelligentcio.com
HID Global also describes the
characteristics of mobile identifications
over other versions of digital
identifications. Receiving and sharing
of mobile IDs is a voluntary process
and requires citizen participation.
The process of receiving, storing, and
presenting the mobile ID, needs to
work with any smartphone device,
in any operating system, with any
telecom service operator, and within
any country. The information encrypted
inside the mobile ID needs to be
readable by only authenticated readers.
And reading the mobile ID must not
require handing over the citizen’s
smartphone in which it is resident.
The integrity of the mobile ID must
not depend on an internet connection
and needs to function in remote areas
equally well. Finally it must be available
in a dead battery situation as well.
Mobile IDs therefore require both the
security keys used by mobile network
operators and the manufacturers of the
smartphones to securely transfer to the
citizen smartphone. These keys allow
loading of the mobile ID applet onto
the respective secure element. They are
also required to personalise the mobile
ID with unique citizen information.
Government agencies that consider
building mobile ID management
solutions on their own, would naturally
be overwhelmed or they can choose to
partner with vendors such as HID Global
that have done so. The latter being the
more logical choice forward.
The solution offered by HID Global
includes two platforms – goID
and Seos. Seos is a cryptographic
Citizens can carry
multiple digital
identifications on
their smartphones
without managing
the physical
versions, since
the smartphone
is now almost
ubiquitous for
everyone
infrastructure technology that has been
developed specifically for the mobile
experience. It is meant to provision
secure credentials over telecom
networks to smartphones. The goID
platform enables instant over-the-air
provisioning and streamlined access to
cloud-based government information
services with assurance that all
transactions are secure and trustworthy.
With Seos and goID, transactions
related to issuing, managing and
presenting credentials using mobile
phones are conducted in highly secure
environment and protected by end-toend encryption.
“Seos is essentially a secure vault where
we can store data items in such a way
that they are encrypted and accessible
using only encrypted channels. It is
a non-SIM based solution, and it is
a hardened software environment,”
explains Rob Haslam, Vice President
and Managing Director, Government ID
Solutions with HID Global.
The solution also segregates citizen data
inside the vault based on required levels
of access. So a law enforcement officer
may have access to all of the citizen’s
data, but a private service entity may
have much more limited access.
INTELLIGENTCIO
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