Abstract:

Identity cards are often used in our normal life to identity someone. In many cases, identity cards are complementary but necessary documents: when someone tends to sell his/her real estate property, apart from showing the original certificate of the property, a valid identity card of the seller is also necessary; in the process of large amount currency withdraw from a bank account, the identity card of the withdrawer together with a valid bank card is necessary. So, in some sense, the forgery detection of many other documents can be complemented by the forgery detection of identity cards. As we know, the production of resident identity cards is a national secret; hence most people do not now know its technical detail. However, as has been shown by many instances in the information technology industry that, the information security provision via manufacturing process has great risks. So public research should be encouraged, and based on the public research outcomes, the manufacture process should combine technical means of protections. This paper tends to overview the weakness of current identity cards in detecting forgeries, discuss the security functionalities that should be possessed by identity cards, particularly by the residential identity cards, intending to explore the possibility for the cryptographic techniques to be used in identity cards, expecting to provide some reference for securer identity card production in the future.

Key words: identity card, identity-based cryptography, key management