Open eCard goes mobile and supports eIDAS

The Open eCard Team consists of industrial and academic experts, who have joined forces to provide an Open Source and platform independent implementation of ISO/IEC 24727, such that arbitrary applications can easily access arbitrary smart cards for authentication and signature purposes. A first result of the project was the Open eCard App, which has been the first Open Source eID-Client certificated according to BSI TR-03124 and now also the first Open Source eID-Kernel for Android and the first free ChipGateway-Client.

Thanks to the recently released version 1.3 of the Open eCard platform, there is for the first time an Open Source and freely usable ‘eID-Kernel’ according to the technical guideline. This allows to perform a mobile proof of identity with the German eID card (Personalausweis), directly in any Android-based smartphone app.

The innovative development was supported by the European Union in the ‘FutureTrust’ project and is already being used productively in the ‘FiftyFifty Taxi’ project of the in German rural districts of Lichtenfels and Kulmbach. The international standard ISO / IEC 24727, which has been implemented in Open eCard, makes it easy to enable other contactless eID and signature cards for direct mobile use.

The ‘ChipGateway Protocol’, which is for example used for proofs of identity with the Luxembourgish eID card, is now supported by the current Open eCard App. This protocol allows to create advanced and qualified electronic signatures in accordance with Regulation (EU) No. 910/2014 (eIDAS) in web applications.

The newly released installers for Windows, MacOS and the Linux distributions Debian, Ubuntu, openSUSE and Fedora make it easier for end-users to deploy the Open eCard App and use it with eID and signature cards from Germany, Belgium, Estonia, Georgia, Luxembourg, Portugal and Serbia.

To facilitate the start for decision-makers and app developers, the Open eCard experts will be offering a go.eIDAS-tutorial at the beginning of the Open Identity Summit 2019 (March 27th – 29th 2019 in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany), where not only the eIDAS-Ecosystem, but also the various relevant open source components will be presented and explained in depth.