Italy
The Italian electronic identity card (Carta d'Identità Elettronica in Italian, in Italy identified with the acronym CIE), is a personal identification document that is replacing the paper-based ID card in Italy. The first Italian electronic ID cards (EIC) were issued in 2001. As of 1 January 2006 the Italian government requires that paper based ID cards are replaced by EICs. By the end of 2009 1.8 million Italian citizens had obtained EICs.
According to provisions of the Italian constitution only the Italian municipalities can supply identity cards to citizens. Therefore the EIC issuing system is distributed among the municipalities allowing each of them to give the EICs directly to their citizens. The Ministry of Internal Affairs supplies the required network infrastructure, software updates and security architecture. As a consequence the required issuing system is more complex than centralized ones used by other countries or for other electronic cards. Recently many municipalities joined the EIC system and currently about 180 municipalities are equipped to issue EICs. The system allows smaller municipalities to collaborate with nearby larger ones in order to reduce printing cost. The potential user base is estimated at about 50 million.
The Italian EIC is intended for both online and offline identification. Therefore, apart from the printed information, data for identification are stored on a microchip as well as a laser band. Specifically, the microchip contains a digital certificate for online authentication and (optionally) a certificate for digital signatures. The Italian EIC is explicitly designed to give access to e-government services and will become the standard for access to online services offered to Italian citizens by public authorities. The technical specifications for the Italian identity card have been developed by the Italian Ministry of Internal Affairs in collaboration with the University of Rome, Tor Vergata. The most recent legal document regarding Italian EIC standards and requirements is the Decreto Ministeriale n. 229 del 8-11-2007.
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Famous quotes containing the word italy:
“For us to go to Italy and to penetrate into Italy is like a most fascinating act of self-discovery—back, back down the old ways of time. Strange and wonderful chords awake in us, and vibrate again after many hundreds of years of complete forgetfulness.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“I think sometimes that it is almost a pity to enjoy Italy as much as I do, because the acuteness of my sensations makes them rather exhausting; but when I see the stupid Italians I have met here, completely insensitive to their surroundings, and ignorant of the treasures of art and history among which they have grown up, I begin to think it is better to be an American, and bring to it all a mind and eye unblunted by custom.”
—Edith Wharton (1862–1937)
“the San Marco Library,
Whence turbulent Italy should draw
Delight in Art whose end is peace,
In logic and in natural law
By sucking at the dugs of Greece.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)