The development of modern identity information authentication technology from the perspective of identity card reform

When it comes to proving "I am who I am", the resident identity card (hereinafter referred to as the ID card) has become the only verification method for humans. With the development and change of technology, the ID card, which is known as the only document used to prove the identity of the holder, has also evolved from the initial population filling in modern times to various forms such as electronic ID cards and WeChat ID cards, which has greatly facilitated people's lives.

This article will start with the changes in ID cards and analyze the development of modern identity information authentication technology.

The first generation of ID cards covered with polyester film: "Am I really me?"

The official consensus is that the first generation of Chinese ID cards was introduced in 1984, in the form of a polyester film-sealed, single-page card. A large number of ID cards were initially issued and filled out by hand. From the literal meaning, we can see that such ID cards filled out by hand are easy to tamper with and prone to errors, and have extremely low security and anti-counterfeiting levels.

In September 1985, the Sixth National People's Congress Standing Committee passed and promulgated the Regulations on Resident Identity Cards, which clearly defined the scope of issuance of identity cards and illegal inspection and use of identity cards. Since then, public security organs have begun to issue and manage the first generation of resident identity cards in accordance with the law.

After being included in legal regulations, the first generation of ID cards bid farewell to the “manual mode” (filled out manually), but due to the economic and technological constraints at the time, the first generation of ID cards were not optimistic in terms of production materials, production technology, anti-counterfeiting performance, etc.

Since the first generation of ID cards mainly used special ID card paper and anti-counterfeiting copy aldehyde film, the security and anti-counterfeiting performance was poor, and the authenticity of the ID card could not be guaranteed, and the security was poor. Then, in order to improve the anti-counterfeiting performance of the ID card, the anti-counterfeiting resident ID card was launched in July 1995. The ID card uses holographic perspective plastic cover anti-counterfeiting technology, that is, laser pattern anti-counterfeiting technology. Based on this technology, it is almost impossible to peel off the ID card without loss. Any attempt to alter the processed information will destroy the holographic image, which can effectively prevent the forgery and alteration of the ID card.

Although the "I am me" problem has been solved with the advent of holographic transparent plastic cover anti-counterfeiting technology, the process of solving this problem is relatively complicated, mainly due to the backwardness of verification methods and low identification efficiency.

The second-generation ID card with multiple anti-counterfeiting features: "I have many selves"

On January 1, 2004, the second-generation resident ID card, a single-page card made of multi-layer polyester material, officially appeared on the Chinese stage. In addition to using contactless IC card technology, the second-generation ID card also uses many new technologies and processes, such as multiple anti-counterfeiting technologies, which greatly improves security and anti-counterfeiting performance.

Let's talk about IC cards first. IC cards are also called integrated circuit cards. The core of IC cards is integrated circuit chips. They use microelectronics technology to embed large-scale integrated circuit chips in a small plastic card. They have the advantages of information security, portability, and relatively complete standardization. According to different communication interfaces, IC cards can be divided into contact IC cards, contactless IC cards, and dual-interface cards. The second-generation ID card discussed in this article is a contactless IC card. Information is stored through the integrated circuit in the card and is used for security authentication. In addition, the second-generation ID card also has a built-in contactless IC chip that can read the data inside at close range. Its applications include self-service ticket collection at automatic ticket machines at train stations, etc.

Let's talk about anti-counterfeiting technology. The multiple anti-counterfeiting technologies of the second-generation ID card are digital anti-counterfeiting technology, printing anti-counterfeiting technology and anti-counterfeiting film. Digital anti-counterfeiting is a kind of anti-counterfeiting applied to machine-readable information. The photo image and identity items of the cardholder are digitized and encrypted using cryptographic technology and stored in the chip. It can effectively prevent the forgery of documents or tampering with the machine-readable information content of the document, and has extremely high security performance; while printing anti-counterfeiting is reflected in the document process. Printing anti-counterfeiting technology includes fine background, microfilm, rainbow printing, hidden encryption points and deformed encrypted fonts in the printed pattern, etc. The fluorescent printing "Great Wall" pattern and microfilm character string "JMSFZ" on the second-generation ID card are the embodiment of printing anti-counterfeiting technology; there is also anti-counterfeiting film. The anti-counterfeiting film of the second-generation ID card adopts directional light-changing color film and other technologies with independent intellectual property rights, such as the word "China CHINA" on the document.

The above highlights are the technologies used in the information management of single-card second-generation ID cards. With the rise and maturity of facial recognition technology, another form of second-generation ID card - the electronic ID card has also been officially launched.

Taking hotel accommodation as an example, since the launch of electronic identity documents, many domestic hotels have not only verified the authenticity of user ID cards, but real-person authentication has also become an important part of proving "I am me". Users can only check in to the hotel if they pass both the ID card authenticity check and real-person authentication. At this stage, real-person authentication uses the most popular face recognition, OCR recognition, liveness detection and big data technologies, with an error rate of only 0.5%, which can prevent all kinds of fake identities from happening to the greatest extent. When I checked into a hotel in Guangzhou, I experienced real-person authentication using camera-based face recognition technology, which was short and efficient.

It can be said that the emergence of electronic ID cards not only overcomes the difficulty of using mobile phones to prove "I am me", but also innovates the form of "I have many selves", breaking through the problem of data silos of personal identity information. However, the disadvantage is that the current electronic ID card requires face recognition before each login, which is still cumbersome.

The third-generation ID card with fingerprint authentication: "I am a smarter me"

Although the third-generation ID card is still in the conceptual design stage, some of its functions have been exposed.

According to the information currently exposed, the third-generation ID card will have six major functions: positioning function, multi-card integration, fingerprint payment, blood sample collection, USB function, and only displaying household registration information. Although the positioning function that touches on privacy issues has been debunked, its innovative fingerprint payment function has not been denied by the official. It seems that the fingerprint payment function should be a highlight of the third-generation ID card.

Fingerprint information authentication refers to the use of an automatic fingerprint recognition system to collect, analyze and compare live fingerprints through special photoelectric conversion equipment and computer image processing technology to automatically, quickly and accurately identify personal identity.

What does it mean when fingerprint payment is built into third-party ID cards? Given that the third-generation ID card will add a new function of combining multiple cards into one, that is, adding the function of combining bank cards, credit cards, social security cards, and shopping cards, the third-generation ID card will be able to use fingerprints to pay for all the cards bound to the ID card, and use fingerprint recognition to identify the identity, thereby providing a convenient and intelligent shopping experience. With the popularization of fingerprint payment, a new consumption method - fingerprint consumption, is also expected to transform China's existing electronic payment market.

From human eye recognition to machine recognition, face recognition and the upcoming fingerprint recognition, the continuous update of identity authentication technology is making our lives more convenient. The increasingly sci-fi identity authentication technology will gradually move towards the goal of "more secure", laying a solid foundation for a safe society.