Students from the University of Montevideo (UM) developed the prototype of an application to read the identity card with their cell phones as part of a collaboration with the Agency for Electronic Government and the Information and Knowledge Society (Agesic).* 100002*
With this technology, it will be possible in the future to sign documents digitally, as well as carry out procedures that require presenting the ID from anywhere, just by bringing the documentation closer to the phone.
It allows the use of the ID card to be greatly enhanced with contactless technology, not only to digitally sign documents, but for authentication and others, said Professor Maximiliano Palay in dialogue with El Observador.
It is a project that has great potential to lay a foundation for future developments, he added
Agesic wanted to have a first approach. I imagine that from here to when this is used there is a long process, said Palay.
How the UM works
Palay is a teacher, together with Diego Durán and Nicolás Sosa, of the ICT Laboratory V and ICT Laboratory VI subjects , both from the UM Telematics Engineering and Computer Engineering careers.
Each subject lasts one semester and the students are fifth graders; they leave these subjects and they have the last semester left and they are received. The course lasts fifteen weeks, in this case it was ICT VI Laboratory and the idea is that students face real problems, not inventing them, but looking for problems that people have who, due to a matter of time or budget, give them It is useful for the university to advance a little in this, he explained.
We had done a project with Agesic, in a previous laboratory, and this year what they proposed is that there is an issue with the new ID: they want to sign digitally using contactless technology, continued Palay.
Today the signature is done with physical readers, in which one introduces the ID, and you are depending on that technology. So it is difficult for there to be a wide adoption of the technology, he added.
The identity card with a chip that has been issued in Uruguay since November 2022 allows interaction by bringing a cell phone closer to the document, or any device with a communication protocol wireless for data exchange (NFC), using PACE, which adds a security layer on top of NFC technology, which resolves «Contactless» communication (without contact, in its translation into Spanish). The prototype interacts securely by bringing the cell phone close to the identity card using PACE-NFC.
However, most modern cell phones have a contactless technology NFC reader, such as a contactless card of credit, so the idea is that we could develop an application to sign digitally without contact using a cell phone, said the teacher.
The process
As it is a fairly software-focused project, it did not require too much capital, he stressed Palay.
UM only bought a phone with NFC technology (almost all cell phones on the market have it). Agesic provided information and documentation of the entire process of how it is currently done: using technology with contact. The agency also provided IDs, which they call specimens, and readers, the professor said.
The students had to develop an application that would first raise communication with the contactless ID. In other words, you have to know what to ask the ID, what to give it, there is a whole communication process that they had to develop.
This is a use case, for what they mainly developed, which is communication between the ID and the phone. But, according to the teacher, there are many more use cases, especially with the subject of Digital ID.
Examples
The prototype that the UM students developed in those fifteen weeks does not store the ID on the cell phone. The card has security at the hardware level – that is, physically – that is why the card data is not stored, Palay said. Therefore, it does not work as an electronic wallet.
The professor explained in which cases the application that the university provided to Agesic can be used.
If you want to sign a PDF today, you need an ID reader, where you can enter it, a computer and an application that allows you to sign. Today there is a kind of flash drive that is placed on the PC and then the ID is placed on that flash drive. What the students did takes that reader out of the way, so with your own smartphone you could bring the ID closer and sign. In this sense, you could do the process anywhere, without having to transport the reader everywhere.
In digital identification, there are three providers that offer maximum security regulated by the Electronic Certification Unit. One of them is the Ministry of the Interior with the identity card. With this technology, the person who wishes to identify himself with an identity card can avoid going to the place where they have to carry out the process to obtain the maximum security range. For example, at home, you have your physical ID, you read it and they already know it’s you, indicated the teacher.
We could carry out a procedure and identify ourselves to the government only with the telephone, he summarized.* 100040*Rare in the world
Palay said the boys had a hard time finding other projects in the world that did the same thing. They did not find. That was a great challenge. There is not much information available, nor many cases, he explained.
Uruguay, as I understand it, is quite advanced in the whole issue of digital identification, he added.
The students who worked on the application were Renzo D’Ambrosio, Felipe Tejería, Felipe Beltrán and Bruno Costanzo.
Universidad de MontevideoAgesicidentity cards
