Germany to begin rollout of open national digital identity service

German consumers with a Galaxy S20 mobile phone will be the first to be able to use a new government-backed service that allows citizens to securely store their national ID on an embedded secure element in their smartphone, Samsung announced.

The company is working with the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI), Bundesdruckerei and Deutsche Telekom Security 'to develop a hardware-based security architecture that allows citizens to securely store their National ID on their smartphone as an eID'.

National electronic ID will be available on selected Samsung Galaxy smartphones when the eID solution becomes available later this year.