Thanks to a new application from the company, the electronic national identity card (DNI) will be able to be included in the SIM card of a mobile phone. In this way it will be possible to enter web pages that require identification, such as those of banks or other institutions, by phone.
The national identity card (DNI), issued by the General Directorate of the Police (Ministry of the Interior), is the document that has proven the identity and personal information of Spaniards for over 50 years.
With the arrival of the internet, it’s been necessary to create an electronic ID that incorporates a chip, and with which users can prove their identity and sign documents with legal validity.
Now Telefónica has taken a further step, presenting an application that allows passing the data from the electronic ID to the SIM card of a mobile phone. With this solution, still in the development phase, it will be possible to enter web pages that require identifying oneself beforehand, such as at banks, service companies and public institutions. Further, it will be possible to use the mobile in order to validate one’s identification or age, when for example physically entering a building such as a disco or office, or even when entering pages for adults that require a minimum age.
The user will only need an electronic DNI reader on their computer, from which one can connect to a webpage to extract the data from the eDNI. Once completed, the client only has to indicate the number of the mobile phone in which he wants to store this data, and he will immediately receive an SMS as confirmation.
Telefónica verifies that this application has a high level of security, given that the ID information stored in the mobile phone’s SIM will only be available for applications signed with the certification of the company, avoiding access from third parties that are not authorized and improper uses.
“For the mobile there is only a danger if the phone is stolen and, further, the PIN code is known”, explains the director of development for large clients at Telefónica España, José González. In this project, the company has joined forces with the informatics security firm Secuware.