En europæisk digital identitet

With a view to ensuring a trusted and secure digital identity for all Europeans, the Council presidency and European Parliament representatives reached on 8 November 2023 a provisional agreement on a new framework for a European Digital Identity.

Since the initial provisional agreement on some of the main elements of the legislative proposal in June 2023, a series of technical meetings followed. Some relevant aspects agreed by the co-legislators include:

the e-signatures: the wallet will be free to use for natural persons by default, but Member States may provide for measures to ensure that the free-of-charge use is limited to non-professional purposes
the wallet’s business model: the issuance, use and revocation will be free of charge for all natural persons
the validation of electronic attestation of attributes: Member States shall provide free-of-charge validation mechanisms only to verify the authenticity and validity of the wallet and of the relying parties’ identity
the code for the wallets: the application software components will be open source, but Member States are granted necessary leeway so that, for justified reasons, specific components other than those installed on user devices may not be disclosed
consistency between the wallet as an eID means and the underpinning scheme under which it is issued has been ensured.
Finally, the revised law clarifies the scope of the qualified web authentication certificates (QWACs), which ensures that users can verify who is behind a website, while preserving the current well-established industry security rules and standards..

Technical work will continue to complete the legal text in accordance with the provisional agreement. When finalised, the text will be submitted to the Member States’ representatives for endorsement. Subject to a legal/linguistic review, the revised regulation will then need to be formally adopted by the Parliament and the Council.

The TELECOM Working Group discussed key points of a first compromise presented by the French Presidency at its meeting on 5 May. These encompassed:
the European Digital Identity Wallet (EDIW) concept and its articulation with (national) electronic identification means;
the assurance level of the EDIW;
the concept of qualified trust service providers and of electronic attestations of attributes;
the unique and persistent identifier.
The Presidency report was then scheduled for discussion at the Telecom Council meeting of 3 June 2022.
So far, no synergies with the CoR position have been identified.

On 25 March 2022, Executive Vice-President sent a letter identifying main actions to be undertaken in relation to the issues raised in the CoR opinion.
The cybersecurity of the European Digital Identity is seen as a key concern to the Commission. It is proposed that the European Digital Identity Wallet will be developed at the highest available level of security and assurance. This includes strong precautions to protect personal data and identity data, for instance through data separation and the prohibition to store and combine certain data. In order to protect effectively against cyber-attacks, the Commission has proposed cybersecurity certification for the relevant parts of the wallet. Close cooperation with Member States' experts and the EU's cybersecurity agency has been established to develop a technical framework that will be able to resist relevant security threats.
In addition, the Commission considers the swift implementation of the European Digital Identity an important policy priority. In order to ensure quick deployment, a possible technical architecture and reference framework is being developed together with Member States on the basis of a recommendation by the Commission and will be updated against the results of the legislative process. It is planned to test the future system in large-scale pilots and to offer a prototype wallet to Member States for this purpose.