The Italian Electronic Identity Card: a short introduction

The italian Electronic Identity Card (EIC, for short) is a polycarbonate smart card equipped with a microchip (supporting cryptographic functions) and a laser band (featuring an embedded hologram). It contains personal (e.g. name, surname, date of birth, . . . ) and biometric data (photo and fingerprint) of a citizen. The EIC is an identity document which, according to Italian Laws, is fully equivalent to the paper based ID card and can serve two different purposes: (i) it can be used as a traditional paper based ID-card, and (ii) can be used as an authentication credential, allowing access to network enabled government services. For example, citizens could use their EIC for accessing a Municipality’s web site allowing them to perform operations like generation of self-certified documents, online tax payment, access to administrative databases, online applications and many other. Any public administration or agency which wants to give access to online services to citizens using the EIC, must register at the Ministry of the Interior. In this way, it is possible to guard citizens’ rights as well as those of the service provider, as needed in a digital government system. The Head of Department of Internal and Territorial Affairs of the Italian Ministry of Interior is responsible for the whole project, which is being developed as an institutional duty of the Central Directorate for Demographic Services of the Ministry of Interior, under its leadership and with its support. The NESTOR Laboratory of the University of Rome "Tor Vergata" is the technical coordinator of the project. Prof. Talamo of the University of Rome "Tor Vergata" is the supervisor of the project. The Italian mint (Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato IPZS), manufactures and initializes EICs. The security system of the EICs architecture (Sistema di Sicurezza del Circuito di Emissione SSCE), generates keys used for activating EICs and is responsible for guaranteeing security during the formation of data and issue of EICs.