PhD thesis shows, that ID card issues reoccur, because they are not learned from

Estonia has used the ID card system as a means to identify its citizens for almost 20 years. During those years, several security issues have emerged. A new PhD dissertation from the University of Tartu has shed light on those issues and pointed out possible lessons for the future.

“The Estonian ID card is a very interesting research object, as it is a nationwide electronic identity scheme that is actually used in practice,” said Arnis Paršovs. In his PhD thesis, he provided a comprehensive overview of all kinds of security problems and other incidents the ID card ecosystem has experienced throughout its 18 years of use. For that, he collected bits and pieces of information from hundreds of news articles, and additional information from the involved parties. He also performed experiments with actual ID cards.

Read further in Estonian at Novaator and in English at the UT Institute of Computer Science blog.