A new e-ID card and online authentication in Spain

This paper describes the introduction of a new electronic identity cardincluding an electronic identity (EID) for local physical and online authentication in2006. The most significant difference to any European country is the decentralizedissuing at 256 police stations employing an automatic printing machine. This is themost visible element in a high degree continuation, as the previous paper based IDcards were also personalized and issued at the police stations. Similarly the attributesdefining the identity and the legal framework were not changed either. While therewas some delay in the planning phase, the role-out of the new eID cards was rathersmooth. At the end of 2009, approx. 13 Mio Spanish citizens out of more than 46.5Mio inhabitants (www.ine.es) were in possession of an eID card. But this does notnecessarily mean that they are using the eID function for online authentication. Thereasons for this application gap will be discussed with reference to online taxdeclaration, where the eID so far covers less than one percent of all online declarationswhile authentication by software certificates still make up for 98 percent