(1) Identity cards as defined in this Act shall be the national identity card and the temporary national identity card.
(2) As defined in this Act, authorities entitled to check identification shall be public bodies authorized to determine the identity of persons as a official measure to fulfil their legally assigned duties.
(3) Service providers shall be natural and legal persons who, to carry out tasks of the public administration or for own business purposes, require proof of identity or individual identifying features of the identity card holder and who have their place of residence, business or office within the geographical area covered by Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 October 1995 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data or in other countries having a comparable standard of data protection.
(4) An authorization certificate shall be an electronic certificate which enables a service provider
1. to verify its identity vis-à-vis the identity card holder and
2. to request the transmission of personal and identity-card-related data from the identity card.
Authorized service providers shall be issued authorization certificates. Authorities entitled to check identification shall be issued official authorization certificates to be used only for the official task of checking identification.
(5) A service- and card-specific identifier shall be a series of characters generated in the storage and processing medium of the identity card. It shall allow the service provider to electronically identify the identity card for which it was generated without having to transmit additional personal data.
(6) The blocking code shall be a series of characters used only to block lost or stolen identity cards whose electronic identification function has been activated.
(7) Blocking attributes of an identity card shall be service- and card-specific series of characters which the service provider for whom they were generated use only to identify lost or stolen identity cards.
(8) Each identity card shall be issued a new serial number. The serial number of an identity card shall consist of a four-digit authority ID number and a five-digit, randomly assigned number, and may include both numerals and letters. The serial number of a temporary identity card shall consist of one letter and seven numerals.
(9) The check digits shall be generated from the data of the machine-readable area and shall serve as an indication of its integrity.
(10) The PIN code shall be a six-digit number used to approve the transmission of data from the identity card for the purpose of electronic identification.
(11) The access code shall be a randomly generated six-digit number printed on the card to protect against unauthorized interception of communications between the identity card and card readers.
(12) The PUK code shall be a randomly generated number to unblock the identity card after the incorrect PIN code has been entered three times in succession.