Sovereign document verification by smartphones

In this paper, we present a method to secure sovereign documents. It is based on technical guidelines from the International Civil Aviation Organization. A public key infrastructure is used to secure the document information. Therefore, the personal data of the sovereign document are used such as metadata and facial image. The data is digitally signed and stored in a JAB Code, a polychrome barcode, and printed on the sovereign document. With this procedure, security papers can be completely omitted for sovereign documents and the verification of integrity and authenticity can be done by any citizen using his smartphone. The evaluation of the implementation was performed on a generalized concept for sovereign documents together with the German Federal Office for Information Security.