Securing and enabling German healthcare
Germany has one of the largest Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) installations in all of Europe. It is a system that connects everything related to healthcare for the German population, called Telematics Infrastructure (TI). Doctors log in to the healthcare network to authenticate themselves with their smart card, dentistry journals are kept in it and pharmacies are connected to distribute prescription drugs, just to name a few use cases. Every doctor and every hospital is connected. It is a vast and complex system designed by the German government and is considered to be a highly prestigious project to be a part of. In this vast solution, DGN is providing the smart cards.
When the project started out, the German healthcare was at the beginning of their digitalization journey. They had the insight to prepare for the future and invested in a full-scale Trust Service Provider (TSP) solution ready for expanding and growing over time. TI, along with their solution providers, consciously built for the future. This has proven to be a very wise strategy as they are now in a position where they are capable of handling an extensive, and increasingly growing volumes of smart cards, authentications, validations and digital signatures in a secure way.
PrimeKey’s partner procilon is one of the carefully selected partners for TI, through the smart card provider DGN, and is responsible for the TSP services of the solution. procilon has designed and set up the smart card system as well as the authentication, validation and digital signing processes. For this, procilon uses PrimeKeys EJBCA® Enterprise for issuing digital certificates for authentication and signing. By doing so, they leverage mature, flexible, and certified products to support a very large and critical system involving the personal health of the German population.
As TI and DGN are handling such delicate and confidential information, guaranteeing a high level of security is crucial. In addition to staying compliant with relevant regulations, such as eIDAS, DGN has added security features that needs to be upheld. This level of security and compliance requires continuous audits of the solution as a whole. Ensuring that these audits go as smoothly and as efficiently as possible has been a top priority of procilon, as they are responsible for large parts of the solution. This is one of the reasons behind choosing products from PrimeKey. procilons knowledge of the audit process, together with the know-how and certifications of EJBCA Enterprise and SignServer makes for smooth sailing. In such complex processes it is a great benefi t to have certification and audit experience from all involved parties.
In the future, DGN and procilon will establish the second generation of the solution where the solution has been updated with support for the latest remote signature services according to eIDAS.