[eID] The short survey of electronic ID cards.

[Chinese]
根據新版台灣國民身分證的新聞報導[1]，大部分人會擔心這類措施的相關問題。像是：

1. 為什麼我們政府要遵循國際民航組織ICAO(International Civil Aviation Organization)的標準呢？
2. 為什麼機讀碼這麼像中國政府的台胞證形式呢？

我在此做了一些關於電子身分證(electronic ID, eID)的研究：

ICAO的策略目標強烈地與United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)做連結，滿足17項中的13項。包含了確保健康的生命、達到性別平等、建立彈性的基礎設施、確保可承受的消耗與產製樣式、降低國與國之間的不平等性等等。[2]
為了達到這些目標，其中的一個解決方案是推動可機讀旅行文件，稱為ICAO Doc 9303.[3]

為什麼ICAO Doc 9303這麼重要？因為它可讓機器容易讀取你的個人資訊，包含姓名、出生日期、出生地與其他欄位。為了保護這些隱私資料，一系列的安全措施也被採用 (請見[3] 的Part 11與Part 12)。

為了建立eID，德國的新版身分證也採用ICAO Doc 9303 [4]。(事實上，它採用其他方案 ISO/IEC standard 14443 [5]，但也使用ICAO Doc 9303的部分標準[6])

這就是為何我們政府聲稱eID遵循ICAO的國際規範。

另一個問題：「為什麼機讀碼這麼像中國政府的台胞證形式呢？」
可機讀護照(Machine Readable Passport, MRP)採用可機讀區域(Machine Readable Zone)來讓機器輕易讀取[7][8]，這樣的措施也被德國、義大利等國的身分證採用，新式身分證也採用類似的編碼方式。這就是為何新版台胞證有類似的機讀碼。

更多的eID趨勢，可以參見科技新報的報導[9]。

[English]
According to the news of electronic ID card for Taiwanese [1], most of people wonder the problems of this measure. Some problems arises:

• Why does our government follow the standard of ICAO(International Civil Aviation Organization)?
• Why is the machine readable code very similar to that of Taiwanese citizen card which China provided?

I make a short survey on the specification of electronic ID card (abbreviate eID).

ICAO’s strategic objective strongly linked to 13 of the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) proposed. Those include ensuring healthy lives, achieving gender equality, building resilient infrastructure, ensuring sustainable consumption and production patterns, reducing inequality among countries and so on.[2]
For achieving these goals, one of the solution is to promote Machine Readable Travel Documents, called ICAO Doc 9303.[3]

Why is the ICAO Doc 9303 important? Because it can let machines easily read your personal information including name, birthday, born town and other fields. For protecting the private data, a series of security measures are adopted. (See Parts 11 and 12 in [3].)

For creating eID cards, ICAO Doc 9303 is one of the solution for German new ID card [4]. (Actually, it adopts another solution called ISO/IEC standard 14443 [5] but also uses part of the specification of ICAO Doc 9303 [6]).

That’s why our government say that the new ID card can be compatible with international specification – ICAO.

The other question: “Why is the machine readable code very similar to Taiwanese citizen card which China provided?”

The machine readable passport (MRP) should use a machine readable zone (MRZ) to let machine easily read the information [7][8] which is also adopted by multiple eID cards like German, Italian and so on. The Taiwanese citizen card provided by China use the similar encoding method. That’s why the new Taiwanese use the MRZ for machines.
As aforementioned, the security is also ensured.
For further trend of eID, please refer to the post of TechNews.[9]

References

1. 仝澤蓉, “新版身分證樣式曝光 將採中英對照,”  聯合財經網 [Online]. Available:  http://goo.gl/HHKvWx
2. ICAO, “ICAO and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals,” ICAO [Online]. Available:http://www.icao.int/about-icao/aviation-development/Pages/SDG.aspx
3. ICAO, “Machine Readable Travel Documents,” ICAO [Online] Available: http://www.icao.int/publications/pages/publication.aspx?docnum=9303
4. Moritz Horsch, Johannes Braun and Alex Wiesmaier, “Mobile eID application for the German identity card,” Technische Universität Darmstadt, Technical Report [Online]. Available: https://www.cdc.informatik.tu-darmstadt.de/reports/TR/Mobile_eID_app_for_the_German_ID_card.pdf 
5. “ISO/IEC 14443,” Wikipedia [Online]. Available: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO/IEC_14443
6. “National identity cards in the European Economic Area,” Wikipedia [Online]. Available: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_identity_cards_in_the_European_Economic_Area
7. “Machine-readable passport,” Wikipedia [Online] Available: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine-readable_passport#Official_travel_documents 
8. “可機讀護照,” Wikiwand [Online] Available:http://goo.gl/iG87tf
9. Sanada Yukimura, “台灣新版晶片身分證 2017 年上路？ 看全球 eID 趨勢,” 科技新報 [Online] Available: http://technews.tw/2015/05/11/taiwan-eid-2007/