In 2006 Spain introduced the country’s first electronic identity cards, allowing its citizens to be in secure online touch with its government and health agencies. In what has become a reference point for other countries considering a similar move, participating Spanish citizens can use the cards to do things such as filing their taxes and checking their driving record online. Twenty-one million Spaniards already own these new identity cards, and the government plans to expand them to all 40 million citizens in the next few years.

“The need for security for all these systems provides a competitive advantage to Spanish companies,” says Jesús Banegas, president of AMETIC, the Spanish Association of Information Technology and Communication Companies (Asociación Multisectorial de empresas de Electrónica, Tecnologías de la Información y Comunicación, Telecomunicaciones y Contenidos Digitales).

“This is one of the biggest projects in the identity arena,” according to Jordi Buch, marketing manager for the information security company Safelayer. Safelayer makes software to manage the digital certificates that ensure the safety of information encoded on the card.

The original Safelayer technology, created a decade ago, verified bank employees and customers, increasingly important after Europe implemented a digital signature law, allowing use of digital signatures in place of physical ones. Safelayer captured approximately 80 percent of the Spanish market and expanded to Portugal, France, Morocco, and several countries in Latin America.

Safelayer’s innovation, says Buch, lies in software that is easily integrated into existing applications. In the past, companies needed four to six months to integrate security, but “we have a technology that can do the same in one month,” says Buch.

Carlos Jiménez formed an early interest in virus detection. In 1988, while he was a university student in Madrid, the Friday the 13th virus threatened university computers. Jiménez created a new method for protecting computers from viruses, monitoring for potential viruses when executing a program instead of when scanning a new disk. He gave his solution to the university for free. “At the time nobody told me to patent the technology, my first mistake,” he says, laughing; he sent the solution gratis to other companies as well.

In 2006 Spain introduced the country’s first electronic identity cards, allowing its citizens to be in secure online touch with its government and health agencies. In what has become a reference point for other countries considering a similar move, participating Spanish citizens can use the cards to do things such as filing their taxes and checking their driving record online. Twenty-one million Spaniards already own these new identity cards, and the government plans to expand them to all 40 million citizens in the next few years.

“The need for security for all these systems provides a competitive advantage to Spanish companies,” says Jesús Banegas, president of AMETIC, the Spanish Association of Information Technology and Communication Companies (Asociación Multisectorial de empresas de Electrónica, Tecnologías de la Información y Comunicación, Telecomunicaciones y Contenidos Digitales).

“This is one of the biggest projects in the identity arena,” according to Jordi Buch, marketing manager for the information security company Safelayer. Safelayer makes software to manage the digital certificates that ensure the safety of information encoded on the card.

The original Safelayer technology, created a decade ago, verified bank employees and customers, increasingly important after Europe implemented a digital signature law, allowing use of digital signatures in place of physical ones. Safelayer captured approximately 80 percent of the Spanish market and expanded to Portugal, France, Morocco, and several countries in Latin America.

Safelayer’s innovation, says Buch, lies in software that is easily integrated into existing applications. In the past, companies needed four to six months to integrate security, but “we have a technology that can do the same in one month,” says Buch.

Carlos Jiménez formed an early interest in virus detection. In 1988, while he was a university student in Madrid, the Friday the 13th virus threatened university computers. Jiménez created a new method for protecting computers from viruses, monitoring for potential viruses when executing a program instead of when scanning a new disk. He gave his solution to the university for free. “At the time nobody told me to patent the technology, my first mistake,” he says, laughing; he sent the solution gratis to other companies as well.