Title: DOCUMENT SCOPE AND CONTENT

Document Scope and Content

This document has a broad scope, covering particularly the technical and legal aspects of Public Key Infrastructures, and Biometrics, with a focus on the possibility of privacy-enhancing implementations. 

Chapter considers PKIs and digital signatures by introducing their application and analysis of the key terminology as described in the EU Directive 1999/93/EC. Following this, the chapter examines the technical aspects of PKIs and their implementation. The inherent security and privacy aspects that are bought about by their specific implementation are then discussed. The EU has initiated some legal directives regarding electronic signatures and pseudonyms for electronic signatures, and these are presented and discussed in section . This is followed by an analysis of the current acceptance of electronic signatures and in particular analysis on current efforts to diffuse qualified electronic signatures. Finally, this section concludes with the examination of a case study on mobile signatures.

Chapter tackles the rapidly expanding field of Biometrics. It starts by introducing the key facets of the technology, and by discussing the various methodologies that are being currently adopted. Then the technological aspects are presented and more detail is given by showing how such approaches can be divided into two broad groups of active and passive biometrics. A discussion follows of the important issues of privacy and security pertaining to the use and implementation of biometric systems. This is achieved by considering the technical, formal and informal aspects of privacy and security. Next, a case study of Secure Storage Biometric Smart Cards is presented and analysed, followed by consideration of the broader implications of implementing biometric systems, from the social, political and economic perspectives.

Chapter attempts to draw a common thread between PKIs and Biometrics by considering the possibilities of biometric-enhanced PKI systems. It draws a distinction between the three methods by which this may be achieved, and illustrates them using the BEE recommendations (IST-20078 BEE) and BioVision project.

Chapter draws conclusions from this document.