The physical artifact (e.g., identity card, “smart” card) issued to an applicant by an issuer that contains stored identity markers or credentials (e.g., a photograph, cryptographic keys, digitized fingerprint representations) so that the claimed identity of the cardholder can be verified against the stored credentials by another person (human readable and verifiable) or an automated process (computer readable and verifiable).
Source(s):
NIST SP 800-79-2