Technology made by media transfer AG allows secure access to electronic passports in Europe

mtG-CARA ready for European passport PKI – new interface for secure connection

Darmstadt, 30. March 2010.- media transfer AG has added an SPOC component to mtG-CARA. mtG-CARA is the basic technology of all Root CA for electronic ID in Germany. With the implementation of SPOC the PKI specialists from Darmstadt, Germany, now also provide a connection to European infra¬structures. This allows European countries mutual access to data of ID cards and passports.

The product portfolio of the PKI specialist media transfer AG has been refined to correspond to the European standard PKI management protocol SPOC (single point of contact). National PKI systems guarantee access protection of electronic IDs within their country. With an SPOC component PKI systems of different European countries can be connected bilaterally. This creates a European PKI which ensures interoperability and a coherent security level at border control.

”The extension of our product gives the PKIs of electronic ID a substantial basis and makes the technical platform mtG-CARA fit for Europe“, explains Andrea Klenk, board member of the media transfer AG. “mtG-CARA meets the high requirements that come along with the handling of interfaces, configurability, performance and scalability.”

At the moment, media transfer AG is building up the topmost certification infrastructure for electronic ID (Root CA) for the Federal Republic of Germany. In the hierarchy of the EAC Root CA – also known as CVCA (country verifying certification authority) –digital certificates are emitted which give dedicated official applications like border control devices access to German travel documents.

The control units of other European nations need authorization certificates of the German EAC PKI to read German travel documents. And, vice versa, German control units need a certified authorization of their European neighbors’ EAC PKIs to read their passports. Based on bilateral agreements secure connections between national PKI systems are thus obligatory. For this purpose the European “Brussels Interoperability Group“ has developed the SPOC (single point of contact) concept. It contains a special secure communications protocol for the mutual application of CA certificates.

Background

Electronic ID documents have to be thoroughly tested for their validity and authenticity. At the same time they have to be protected from unauthorized access of their owner’s personal data. In addition to international standards the EU has defined a wider range of inner-European security measures. They especially affect the access to stored biometric information (fingerprints). With these manifestations the EU relates to the German standard „Extended Access Control“ (EAC).The technical basis for EAC are PKIs which emit so-called authorization certificates in a two-stage hierarchy.

In Germany, the standard protective mechanisms for passports have been refined for the new ID cards. The access protection not only covers the biometric data but also the so-called eID functionality.

media transfer (mtG) develops and sells security technology and multimedia applications since 1995. The specialists for public key infrastructure (PKI) and trust center products provide a platform for certification authority (CA) thus offering an extensive solution for large as well as smaller in-house projects. mtG is accredited as a testing center for IT security at the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI). The Darmstadt-based company is specialized in the technologies of the recent German eCard projects (health insurance card, digital passport and digital ID card).
In 2005, media transfer AG introduced the PKI platform mtG-CARA which can be used as an all-round solution for companies, administration, and trust centers. The product is multi-client enabled and supports the mapping of government or company structures by administrating their certificates. The PKI and administrative functions can be smoothly integrated into business and government processes via web service interfaces and are also applicable for SOA architectures. www.mtg.de

media transfer AG
Andrea Klenk
Dolivostr. 11
D-64293 Darmstadt
www.mtg.de
contact@mtg.de
Telefon +49 (6151) 8193-0

PRESS CONTACT:
faltmann PR
Sabine Faltmann
+49.241.43 53 74 84
mtg@faltmann-pr.de

This release was published on openPR.