Security Documents

Electronic office ID card

Modernising Germany's administration is one of the paramount infrastructure challenges of recent years and will remain so in the years to come. The measures designed to optimise administrative procedures have already been launched on a broad basis and are now to be pushed further ahead. To this effect, the Federal Ministry of the Interior commissioned Bundesdruckerei GmbH in co-operation with the Federal Office for Information Security and the German Federal Criminal Police Office to develop and produce office ID cards with enhanced security features for the staff at all federal authorities. The Federal Armed Forces has also adopted this approach.

Vast experience and comprehensive results formed the foundation of the planning process:

In a first pilot project over a 7-month period, a preliminary version of the electronic office ID card was successfully tested from November 2001 to June 2002 by a total of 100 employees at the Federal Ministry of the Interior and at the Federal Office for Information Security under the leadership of Bundesdruckerei GmbH.

In addition to this, Bundesdruckerei successfully conducted a pilot project titled "Personal key card for the Federal Armed Forces" (May 2003 - October 2005) for the Federal Office for Information Management and Information Technology of the German Armed Forces. 764 cards were issued to 633 participants in the pilot phase at 56 locations and successfully tested.

The new electronic office ID card uses state-of-the-art hybrid card technology in order to combine the functionalities of contactless memory chips with those of contact-based processor chips, making it possible for the first time to integrate numerous additional electronic mechanisms into the conventional ID card, thereby implementing a multi-functional security concept.

Contact:
e-mail: personaldokumente@bdr.de