Austria has begun rollout of E-Health Card

Since June 1. 70.000 so called 'e-cards' are delivered daily to Austrias citizens. By the end of the year all 8 million austrian people will be issued the ecard, which is the citizen-side component of a comprehensive E-Health infrastructure. Austrias e-card is factually a test for the E-Health project in Germany described by me in an earlier post and is produced by the same contractor Giesecke & Devrient.

Like Germanys 'GesundheitsCard' the e-card stores basic personal information of its bearer, his/her insurance status and some emergency information about blood type etc. It furthermore contains a government approved Digital Signature that allows authentication for E-Business and E-Government transactions. While being introduced as a E-Health solution, the e-card can serve as a general ID tool for the Internet.

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