In 2005 the German government introduced the electronic passport.  Now its 2008 and the introduction of an electronic ID card has already been decided.
The electronic ID will be equipped with SmartCard functionalities. It communicates via radio with an RF-reader, referring to ISO 14443. The ID contains personal attributes like its non-electronic equivalent.

The eID will provide cryptographic functionality. This enables electronic authentication based on specific attributes, for example via internet.

The special feature of an eID is that the holder keeps control over the approval of his attributes.  The holder can decide for himself, if and if yes, who he grants access to specific attributes.

One particular method of access protection during the electronic readout of the chip is the so called Extended Access Control (EAC). Similar to the Transport Layer Security protocol, formerly SSL, there is a mutual authentication between  the ID and the RF reader.  According to this an encrypted End-to-End connection is established, which is used for any kind of communication between reader and ID.

A possible build-up for the authentication over the internet could be as followed: