New framework for electronic identity cards

In this paper we present a novel framework for electronic identity cards. This framework enhances user privacy, provides accountability and transparency for different actions and transactions between the user and authorities, facilitates peer to peer transactions between two cards and cardholders and enables broadcast encryption. The framework relies on recent advances in cryptography to achieve the privacy of users'identity information. Both identity-based and attribute-based cryptography are used to give the cardholders different ways to authenticate themselves to different services, authorities or even other individuals. Currently, it is not possible to realise all the functionality of our framework in smart cards, but this paper provides a good target for the development of better hardware and software for smart cards. In better resourced devices it should be possible to implement our methods for proof-of-concept purposes.