New national ID cards are coming to Germany. The new cards boast features designed to safeguard against the hazards of the Internet age, including phishing and identity theft, but critics say there are still problems.
National identification cards are nothing new to Germans. Citizens have been required to show their ID card or a passport to the authorities since 1939, when the Nazis first wrote it into law. After World War II, the various occupying powers kept the policy of national ID cards for everyone over the age of 16.
On November 1, the German government is rolling out the latest incarnation of the German national ID card, the so-called electronic ID, or EID. The new cards contain a microchip using radio frequency identification technology, or RFID. This technology is already widely used in security systems for various buildings, as well as by retailers to inventory goods.
All citizens whose ID cards are expiring this year can apply for new ones, as the government begins to phase them in.
"It's an electronic means of identifying an item, in this case an ID card," said Karsten Nohl, an independent security expert, in an interview with Deutsche Welle.
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