Basically, the ID card will show all the personal attributes that are printed on the current ID card, but they can be read with appropriate terminals, too. Before the data can be read, the terminal and the ID card perform mutual authentication using protocols such as PACE, Terminal Authentication and Chip Authentication. These protocols are part of Extended Access Control (EAC), a new standard by the German BSI to securely read machine-readable travel documents. Whenever personal attributes shall be read, an end-to-end encrypted channel is established between the ID card and the eID server. Thus, the data cannot be intercepted. In theory. They say.
OK, joking aside, to be serious, as far as I can tell, Extended Access Control with its protocols PACE, Terminal and Chip Authentication are, from an IT security perspective, really strong means to build-up a secure channel. We have put together some more information on our institute website (in German only).
