Samsung has announced that it is working with the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI), Bundesdruckerei (bdr), and Deutsche Telekom Security GmbH to make Germany’s national electronic ID available on certain Samsung devices.
This new technology will be available to Germans later this year. The company made it known that the organizations have come up with a hardware-based security architecture that lets German citizens carry their electronic ID on their mobile devices securely. Once a person enrols, their electronic ID can be stored locally in a secure location on the phone due to the security chip in Samsung phones.
The first set of devices expected to support this feature are the Samsung Galaxy S20 smartphones. The Galaxy S20 devices have embedded Secure Element (eSE) which stores all the sensitive data on a separate processor in the phone. This processor is properly isolated and protected against hardware attacks or attempts to copy information stored inside of it.
Samsung believes that this is just a first step in the right direction, as users will be able to store other vital credentials like driver’s license and national health insurance cards in the eSE chips in future iterations.
Germans can start enjoying this app once Bundesdruckerei has it published on Play Store. People who own a Galaxy S20 or any other compatible device will be able to use NFC to add their national IDs to their phone.
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Staff Writer