ISO/IEC 23465-1:2023

INTERNATIONAL ISO/IEC
STANDARD 23465-1
First edition
2023-02
Card and security devices for personal
identification — Programming
interface for security devices —
Part 1:
Introduction and architecture
description
Cartes et dispositifs de sécurité pour l’identification personnelle —
Interface de programmation pour dispositifs de sécurité —
Partie 1: Introduction et description de l’architecture
Reference number
© ISO/IEC 2023
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© ISO/IEC 2023 – All rights reserved

Contents Page
Foreword .iv
Introduction .v
1 Scope . 1
2  Normative references . 1
3  Terms and definitions . 1
4  Symbols and abbreviated terms.2
5  System overview . 3
5.1 Conditions of use. 3
5.2 Simple system configuration . 4
5.3 Complex system configuration . 4
5.4 Generic examples using the different configurations . . 5
5.4.1 SoC — Example of simple system configuration . 5
5.4.2 ID-systems . 5
5.4.3 Mobile devices with multiple security devices . 6
5.4.4 Mobile devices with a single security device . 7
5.4.5 Use cases . 8
6  Architecture model .8
6.1 Components . 8
6.1.1 Client application . 8
6.1.2 Proxy . 8
6.1.3 Security device . 8
6.2 System using the API . 8
6.3 Data model of client application . 9
6.4 Data management . 10
6.5 Security architecture. 11
7  API .12
7.1 General .12
7.2 Requirements for a programming interface .12
7.3 API Implementation . 12
8  Proxy .12
8.1 General .12
8.2 Proxy characteristics .13
9 Evolution of security device types .13
Annex A (informative) Design rules .14
Annex B (informative) Use cases .15
Annex C (informative) Variants of security device interfaces .20
Annex D (informative) Usage and co-existence of additional APIs .21
Bibliography .22
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© ISO/IEC 2023 – All rights reserved

Foreword
ISO (the International Organization for Standardization) and IEC (the International Electrotechnical
Commission) form the specialized system for worldwide standardization. National bodies that are
members of ISO or IEC participate in the development of International Standards through technical
committees established by the respective organization to deal with particular fields of technical
activity. ISO and IEC technical committees collaborate in fields of mutual interest. Other international
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work.
The procedures used to develop this document and those intended for its further maintenance
are described in the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 1. In particular, the different approval criteria
needed for the different types of document should be noted. This document was drafted in
accordance with the editorial rules of the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 2 (see www.iso.org/directives or
www.iec.ch/members_experts/refdocs).
Attention is drawn to the possibility that some of the elements of this document may be the subject
of patent rights. ISO and IEC shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent
rights. Details of any patent rights identified during the development of the document will be in the
Introduction and/or on the ISO list of patent declarations received (see www.iso.org/patents) or the IEC
list of patent declarations received (see https://patents.iec.ch).
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For an explanation of the voluntary nature of standards, the meaning of ISO specific terms and
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the World Trade Organization (WTO) principles in the Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) see
www.iso.org/iso/foreword.html. In the IEC, see www.iec.ch/understanding-standards.
This document was prepared by Joint Technical Committee ISO/IEC JTC 1, Information technology,
Subcommittee SC 17, Cards and security devices for personal identification.
A list of all parts in the ISO/IEC 23465 series can be found on the ISO and IEC websites.
Any feedback or questions on this document should be directed to the user’s national standards
body. A complete listing of these bodies can be found at www.iso.org/members.html and
www.iec.ch/national-committees.
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© ISO/IEC 2023 – All rights reserved

Introduction
Integrated circuit card (ICC) technologies and solutions are widely deployed around the world, but
systems for identity tokens and credentials are quickly changing. In this context, the application
protocol data unit (APDU) protocol defined in the ISO/IEC 7816 series is becoming, in some cases, a
hindrance to the integration of integrated circuits (ICs) (as security devices) in environments such as
mobile phones, handheld devices, connected devices (e.g. M2M, IoT) or other applications using security
devices.
Several stakeholders are not familiar with, or not very fond of the APDU protocol because of its
complexity. They will often circumvent its constraints by requesting an abstraction layer hiding IC
specifics. Although the security mechanisms of security devices are well defined in ISO/IEC 7816-4
their implementation and application differ from vendor to vendor and the complexity overstrains most
of the application developers.
In software development, a common way to simplify the usage of complex systems is the definition and
application of application programming interface (API) functions to access the IC within the devices.
Specific knowledge of APDU protocols and details of the IC implementation is not necessary anymore.
Also, the complexity and details of the implementation of the security model and the security policy can
be shifted from pure application development into system design of the electronic device and its related
software.
Therefore, this document is geared towards software (SW)-architects, application programmers or
specification developers developing software applications using and addressing ICs as security devices
within operating systems or their components.
The projected applications can run on different software and hardware environments. Generalisation
of the API definition is key and the dependencies on specific runtime environments and equipment are
kept out in principle.
Existing runtime environments already support the access to IC as security devices using different
[10] [12]
specific APIs, e.g. OpenMobileAPI, PKCS#11, but they always implement a proprietary interface
and middleware, which is not commonly applicable. However, even solutions based on those kinds
of middleware are perceived as cumbersome in some systems. The market looks for a middleware
memory footprint to be as low as possible. This document also aims to overcome or mitigate those
issues by proposing a new approach that would preserve ICC functionality and allows for a seamless
ICC portability onto new systems.
Since the system is designed for easy support by mobile operation systems, mobile operating system
(OS) designers/ implementers are encouraged to support these standardized APIs to access any
embedded secure element (eSE) within the mobile device.
In the context of mobile devices, there is a necessity for trusted computing, e.g. by dedicated security
hardware. The proposed API helps the application implementer with a standardized common interface
to such trusted IC.
The ISO/IEC 23465 series focuses on a solution by designing an API and a system with the following
characteristics.
— It offers a set of API calls related to multi-sectorial ICC functionality, derived from the ISO/IEC 7816
series and other ICC related standards.
— It defines the sub-system to perform the conversion from the API function to the interface of the
security device (e.g. APDU-interface), called Proxy.
— It res
...