ISO/IEC 24789-1:2011 comprises a methodology for determining application profiles, their requirements and corresponding examples. It contains no additional or changed requirements for the ID card properties defined in other applicable standards. It seeks to define the relative rigour of each application defined herein in terms of a set of simple but justifiable methods of evaluation.

The purpose of ISO/IEC 24789 is to provide guidance on methods and their use to simulate a card's service life. In order to achieve this purpose, two parameters of card service life are defined: age and usage. This can be represented as a two-dimensional matrix in which each age/usage combination corresponds to a card service life class. The two parts of ISO/IEC 24789 together describe the evaluation methods to be used and their criteria.

ISO/IEC 24789 was originally developed for ID-1 cards conforming to ISO/IEC 7810, but might be found useful in whole or in part for other types and form factors.

References are given to the corresponding methods of evaluation in ISO/IEC 24789-2 and elsewhere.