e-ID card offers more protection to China's internet users

Want China Times, Staff Reporter 2014-11-09

A woman uses her laptop to chat online. (File photo/CNS)

The Third Research Institute of China's Ministry of Public Security has developed an electronic identity card that claims to provide better and more efficient protection to internet users' personal information and security, reports the Chinese-language Beijing Morning Post.

The new technology, named e-ID, was on show at the 16th China International Industry Fair between Nov. 4-8. It stores personal information on a chip of a bank card. At the fair, the institute's staff used a card reader or a smartphone to read the e-ID, which allows the owners to shop online and check their purchases without submitting their name, address, phone number or personal information.

Yan Zeming, deputy director of the institute's information and internet security laboratory, said the technology uses an algorithm called Guomi SM2 and has a strong security mechanism that ensures the card's information cannot be read, copied, changed or used illegally.

The institute has launched a trial program for the e-ID since 2012 when it provided nearly 30,000 e-IDs to Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications. Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the country's largest commercial bank, has also issued 6 million bank IC cards installed with the technology across the country.