Electronic ID Technology in the Internet of Things

The terminals of the Internet of Things are objects. People's lives and work are inseparable from the thousands of objects around them. People are the subject and objects are the object. The most intuitive understanding of the Internet of Things is that people need to know which objects are connected and control them to play their roles. The Internet of Things needs to identify objects and people. This article discusses the relevant technologies of the Internet of Things to identify people.

The essence of the Internet of Things includes automatic identification

The essence of the Internet of Things can be summarized as follows: first, interconnection; second, identification and communication features, that is, the "things" included in the Internet of Things must have the functions of automatic identification and machine-to-machine communication (M2M); third, intelligent features, that is, the network system should have the characteristics of automation, self-feedback and intelligent control. Among them, "identification and communication features" and "intelligent features" are inseparable from the identity recognition of objects and related personnel. Objects have the functions of automatic identification and machine-to-machine communication, and the Internet of Things platform, objects, and personnel can automatically recognize each other's identities.

It can be seen that automatic identification plays an important role in the Internet of Things, and biometrics is one of the most important means to achieve automatic identification. In the application field of the Internet of Things, biometrics is widely used in various industries such as green agriculture, industrial monitoring, public safety, urban management, telemedicine, smart home, smart transportation and environmental monitoring.

Concept of electronic identification service

Electronic identity (EID) applications have a long history. Since the beginning of computers, the earliest EID application was to use passwords to verify the identity of computer users. With the development of social economy, EID applications have gradually expanded to the fields of e-government and people's livelihood, responsible for the identity identification of citizens, government officials and mobile terminals.

Similar to the Internet, all information that the Internet of Things can identify about users and objects is represented by a specific set of data. This specific set of data represents a digital identity, and all authorizations to users and objects are also authorizations for digital identities. How to ensure that the user who operates with a digital identity is the legal owner of this digital identity, that is, to ensure that the user's physical identity corresponds to the digital identity, the EID service is designed to solve this problem. As the first gateway to the Internet of Things, the importance of the EID service is self-evident.

In the real world, there are three basic methods for user authentication: telling what you know, showing what you have, and providing unique biometrics. The means of identity authentication in the Internet of Things are the same as in the real world. The means of identity authentication in the Internet of Things include: 1. Entering confidential information, such as the user's name, password or encryption key; 2. Showing physical objects such as access cards, keys or tokens, and identifying through question-and-answer systems and physical identification devices; 3. Using biometrics, such as fingerprints, voice, retina and other recognition technologies to uniquely identify users.

Electronic identity recognition based on biometrics

Biometric-based EID refers to electronic identification technology that distinguishes individuals through the biological characteristics of the organism (generally referring to humans). Currently, there are many research areas for biometrics, mainly including voice, face, fingerprint, palm print, iris, retina, body shape, keyboard typing, signature, etc. For the Internet of Things, we choose four biometrics: face, voice, fingerprint and iris as the identification basis for biometric-based EID services.

Face Recognition

The advantage of face recognition is that it is natural and cannot be detected by the individual being tested. However, face recognition technology is very difficult and is considered one of the most difficult research topics in the field of biometric recognition and even in the field of artificial intelligence.

Speech Recognition

Voice recognition uses recording equipment to continuously measure and record the waveform and changes of sound, and matches the sound collected on site with the registered sound template to determine the user's identity. This recognition technology has low recognition accuracy due to technical problems.

Fingerprint recognition

Fingerprint recognition has a long history as an identification technology that can reliably confirm a person's identity. However, the fingerprints of some people or groups are difficult to identify because they have few fingerprint features and often cannot be identified when the fingers are sweaty or contaminated.

Iris Recognition

Iris recognition technology is several to dozens of orders of magnitude more accurate than other biometric authentication technologies. The disadvantage of iris recognition is that the user's eyes must be aligned with the camera, and the camera scans the user's eyes at close range, which is an intrusive recognition method and may cause disgust among some users.

Application of electronic identity recognition in smart cities

Driven by the government, the Internet of Things will be widely used in various fields of smart cities to improve government efficiency. The application of EID services in the field of the Internet of Things solves the identity recognition problem of smart cities. From the definition of the Internet of Things, EID services are the prerequisite for the development of the Internet of Things. To achieve intelligence and automation, the Internet of Things must first determine the legal identity of users and their items. All Internet of Things applications for cities require EID services.

ZTE proposed a five-in-one smart city application solution, which integrates the most commonly used livelihood activities: household registration, election activities, driver's license verification, water, electricity and gas services, and medical services. All verification information is stored in a unified manner, and each agency does not need to collect citizen data repeatedly. The comprehensive management solution optimizes citizens' lives and makes cities smarter.

Household registration information can prove a citizen's identity and can also be used to verify nationality, age, blood relationship and other status data; election certificates are proof that citizens have the right to vote in a certain election; in the Internet of Things environment, the verification of driver's licenses becomes very simple. After the verification terminal is connected to the Internet of Things, it can be queried online and verified offline; water, electricity and gas are the most important living materials for citizens. At present, the supply of water, electricity and gas belongs to different systems, and meter reading and payment are inconvenient. After incorporating water, electricity and gas services into the Internet of Things management, water meters, electricity meters and gas meters will all be intelligent, which will greatly facilitate the lives of citizens and improve management efficiency; in the Internet of Things, medical instruments can be transformed into smart sensors, and medical smart sensors at both ends of the hospital and the home can be used to connect the hospital and the home, establish a telemedicine center, and conduct remote consultation, remote monitoring and remote diagnosis.

The five-in-one smart city application solution is centered on EID services and uses smart card technology to realize biometric recognition functions. It makes the city smart through multiple links such as identity information collection, network transmission, unified management and business processing.

Smart Card

The solution uses a smart card with a CPU to store four types of data: user ID, user password, digital certificate, and private key, as well as key business information such as household registration, election certificate, driver's license, water, electricity, and medical services. The smart card stores cryptographic algorithms, public key certificates, and their corresponding private keys. Signatures and encryption are performed on the smart card. The private key does not leave the card, and confidential content cannot be copied. It also uses dual-factor authentication, which uses biometrics instead of PIN code authentication.

The components of the smart city solution are shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1 Relationship between smart card related devices, users, and IoT platforms

Comprehensive biometrics

Each of the four biometric technologies has its own advantages and disadvantages. Therefore, the electronic identity service adopts a comprehensive biometric approach, integrating the four biometrics into two groups, one for natural recognition, including face recognition and voice recognition, and the other for accurate recognition, including fingerprint recognition and iris recognition. The electronic identity service system can be configured to select 1 to 2 combinations from each of the two groups for recognition. Comprehensive biometrics can improve recognition accuracy, while improving user friendliness and increasing the ease of use of the system.

Architecture

The system of the smart city five-in-one application solution adopts a four-layer structure, as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2 4-layer structure diagram of the five-in-one smart city application solution

The fourth layer, the application service layer, consists of IoT applications, services and users, and combines with industry needs to realize the intelligent application of IoT, including citizen information center, citizen service system, smart card management system, etc. These systems use smart cards and biometric technology to enable all citizens and service providers to use a unified portal for access and various management operations. Service providers include not only government departments such as police stations, election offices and community offices, but also water companies, gas and natural gas companies, power companies, hospitals and other medical institutions. The system provides external interfaces for connecting to other scalable e-government application systems.

Electronic identity recognition solutions based on biometric technology provide an effective way to make cities smarter. The use of biometric technology can accurately identify the identity of citizens, solve the most basic problems of IoT applications, and promote the development of smart cities.