As for governments in numerous countries, improved road safety has become a significant concern, the importance of digital/smart tachograph has grown dynamically due to a number of related benefits, such as better working conditions for drivers and reduction of fraud linked to an excess of driving time and speeding.

A tachograph is a device fitted to a vehicle that automatically records its speed and distance, together with the driver’s activity selected from a choice of modes. The drive mode is activated automatically when the vehicle is in motion, and modern tachograph heads usually default to the other work mode upon coming to rest. The rest and availability modes can be manually selected by the driver whilst stationary.

Digital tachographs make tampering much more difficult by sending signals in an encrypted manner compared to analogue systems, but there are many stakeholder-like drivers, such as police officers, workshop and truckage companies who need to be equipped with smart cards to sign travel data digitally.

SwissPKI^TM supports the implementation of the country signing certificate authority (CA) for the certification of the driver, police, workshop and business cards. However, the risk analysis and design of the overall safety of the involved systems for card management, card production and the cryptographic components in an environment with a high potential for fraud is always a challenge and improvements to the solution a constant process.