e-ID and Smartcards — Current Status, Hopeful Developments and Best Practices

Abstract

Smartcards were first deployed in the early 1980s but it was not until the early 1990’s that they were deployed in large numbers. During the 90’s the number of smartcards in circulation grew exponentially. They are now in widespread use in credit card, ticketing and mobile phone applications. But they have yet to be deployed in large numbers in identification applications.

There are several reasons for this but the lack of standards has hindered the deployment of smartcards in e-ID applications. Without standards interoperability between card schemes is severely hampered which limits the benefit that an ID card scheme operator can realise.

The situation is changing, however, and the development of standards is progressing well. We are now seeing the publication of guidance on deploying e-ID smartcards that are interoperable with other card schemes. This bodes well for the expanded use of smartcards in the identification sector.