Managment summary
finma now permits a way to perform digital identification without video or bank transfer. The chosen technology (reading an NFC chip) is technically sound but of limited practical relevance since it is limited to passports and requires native apps.
Background
Analysis
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Swiss ID cards don’t have a chip. Passports do, but in our experience, they are used in around 1% of the onboarding cases.
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To read the data from the chip, reading the machine readable zone (MRZ) of the document beforehand is necessary because the password to access the chip is encoded in the MRZ. So there is always an additional step for the user.
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National ID cards of other countries are less standardized than travel passports. For example, German ID cards (the „Perso“), which are as widely used as the Swiss ID cards, require an additional key to access the data which is in the visual zone of the document.
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Reading the chip data is only possible with a native app on the device, requiring the user to install an app.
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As of today, signature law has not been updated and therefore qualified signatures (required for consumer credit cases) are still not possible.
Outlook
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Mid- to long-term, the Swiss ID card will get an NFC chip (not yet in 2021 but probably some time before 2025) and with 10% yearly renewal rate, every Swiss citizen should have an NFC-capable document in their wallet by 2035.
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With a change in the digital signature legislation, allowing qualified signatures in combination NFC would make video obsolete and could make digital signatures much more usable.
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Moving from probabilistic to (almost) deterministic security features is a paradigm shift with substantial long term impact on the digital identification landscape.
about fidentity
fidentity provides Software for compliant digital customer identification according to finma rules. The user just takes a selfie and scans their ID document. This can take place on any cell phone in the standard browser without app. Using artificial intelligence (AI), fidentity checks the authenticity of the documents and extracts all data. The identification is completed in real time and all relevant documentation is provided to the financial intermediary in real time.
fidentity is audited according to the ISAE300 standard.
fidentity – Compliant Onboarding – Fast and Convenient