German consumers with a Galaxy S20 mobile phone will be the first to be able to use a new government-backed service that allows citizens to securely store their national ID on an embedded secure element in their smartphone, Samsung has announced.
The smartphone maker is working with the German Federal Office for Information Security[1] (BSI), Bundesdruckerei[2] and Deutsche Telekom Security[3] “to develop a hardware-based security architecture that allows citizens to securely store their National ID on their smartphone as an eID,” the company says.
“National electronic ID will be available on selected Samsung Galaxy smartphones when the eID solution becomes available later this year.”
“After downloading and installing the Mobile ID application distributed by Bundesdruckerei from Play Store, Galaxy S20 owners can tap their near field communications (NFC) enabled National ID card on the back of their phone to verify their identity and get started.
“Once verified, the mobile eID will be stored securely on the smartphone and can be used to open a bank account, use eGovernment services and more.”
Once enrolled, citizens’ identity data will be stored in an embedded secure element (eSE) on the user’s Galaxy S20, S20+ or S20 Ultra smartphone — “with other Samsung smartphones to follow”.
To support the creation of an open ecosystem, Samsung has also made available a software development kit (SDK) for its eSE[4].
“This will enable service providers and app developers to create applets for Trusted Service Manager (TSM) that can be loaded into the secure chipset-based platform,” Samsung says.
“As a result, applications and services will be able to work seamlessly with the eID
