A comparative study of three Spanish eGoverment smart cards

Smart cards are well-known tamper-resistant devices, and due to their portability and security they represent an excellent platform for implementing strong authentication services. This contribution analyses three Spanish smart card deployments intended to be used for eGoverment services, comparing their respective contents and capabilities. As a result of our analysis, we conclude that the current deployment of smart cards for the electronic prescription service being rolled out throughout Spain could be replaced by the use of the already consolidated Spanish National Identity card.