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The EIDReader applet

Note

this project is deprecated because Java is no longer supported in browsers. An alternative solution is eidreader.

International eID card reader

EIDReader is an applet to read the public information on electronic ID cards of different countries and make them accessible to the JavaScript code of a web page.

This is useful in web applications which read the public info (name, national id, birth date,…) from an id card inserted into the client’s card reader and send this info to the application server. For example in an Estonian pharmacy it is normal that the salesman inserts the customer’s id card instead of asking for their name or national id.

Currently supported countries are Estonia and Belgium. The applet is designed to read also other countries, but we would need voluntary contributors to add support for more countires.

The Belgian reader even reads the photo (a feature not supported by the Estonian reader because in Estonia this requires previous authentication).

How to get it

Relation with other projects

  • This applet is “underground work” and not yet officially supported by any of the national software frameworks for Estonia and Belgium

  • Other than the official Belgian eid-applet, EIDReader does not ask for a PIN and does not authenticate the id card’s holder. Authentication and security is responsibility of the application which uses the applet.

  • EIDReader is functionally comparable to the Estonian eidenv command-line tool, but (1) it works also for Belgian cards and (2) does not require any special software except Java on the client machine.

Status

  • I’d love to find a partner for this project, somebody who has some experience with Java, who would give me advise and help me to learn about packaging, signing and deploying the applet. Or even (if you prefer) somebody who fully takes the project maintenance.

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