Samsung Electronics, Deutsche Telekom Security, BSI and bdr recently announced Germany’s National electronic ID will be available on selected Samsung Galaxy smartphones when the eID solution becomes available later this year.
As part of a long-term collaboration with an alliance of German government bodies to deliver upon its eGovernment initiative, Samsung partnered with the BSI, bdr and Telekom Security to develop a hardware-based security architecture that allows citizens to securely store their National ID on their smartphone as an eID. Once enrolled, their eID is transferred to a secure location on their phone.
This new mobile eID solution was created as part of the OPTIMOS 2.0 project, whose goal is to create an open ecosystem that provides the technology and infrastructure for secure mobile authentication. To achieve this goal of creating an open ecosystem, Samsung made the Software Development Kit (SDK) for its embedded Secure Element (eSE) available to third parties. 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. As a result, applications and services will be able to work seamlessly with the eID program and German citizens can enjoy them with peace of mind, knowing their information will be protected.
The Samsung Galaxy S20 lineup, including the Galaxy S20, Galaxy S20+ and Galaxy S20 Ultra, will be the first smartphone to comply with the BSI’s eID security framework for sovereign use.
Thomas Fetten, CEO of Deutsche Telekom Security
Our newly developed TSM system is used for the transport of the identities, data storage management and ultimately lifecycle management of each eID, which provides the basis for a multitude of other secure applications.
Daniel Ahn, Corporate SVP and Head of Security Team at Mobile Communications Business, Samsung Electronics
We’re incredibly proud that our Galaxy S20 series was the first line of mobile devices to meet such high security standards set out by the BSI. We always strive to offer the highest level of protection possible for our users.
