The Grand Vision of The Future … European Digital ID Wallet (EDIW)

The Grand Vision of The Future … European Digital ID Wallet (EDIW)

The problem with national identity schemes is that they often lack fundamental trust from citizens, and where the scheme is seen as a way to spy on citizens. In the UK, a previous national ID scheme was cancelled on the back of a single blog post. So, as many countries are moving toward digital ID schemes for their country, it is the EU which perhaps have the answer to getting citizens on board. With their European Digital ID Wallet (EDIW) approach, there is a hope that every EU citizen will gain an e-ID, and which would be linked to a citizen wallet.

The pilot phase will begin in 2023, and where every EU member country will offer a Digital ID Wallet by 2024. The core part of this will be the compliance with GDPR and the integration of a legal framework of eIDAS. It is such a grand vision, and will start to break down the siloed digital system we have created, and in the almost complete lack of any real digital trust in the information systems we have created.

Thales [here] recently undertook a survey to understand how citizens perceive an EU-derived wallet — which could store a citizen’s ID, their driving licence and other relevant documents that could be used to prove someone's identity. It showed that around 27% of those surveyed currently use some form of national ID scheme to prove their identity:

A significant finding is that privacy and security are significant concerns for citizens, with 65% of those in the survey saying that security was the most important feature of the wallet and then followed by convenience and privacy as the most significant concerns. Another finding was that there were significant differences in the attitudes to the wallet in different countries, and where in France and Italy, the level of likely adoption was surveyed at 85% and 75%, respectively. Age, too, plays a factor, and where younger people are more accepting of the adoption of digital wallets. The survey uncovers differences in national attitudes. The French and the Italians are the most positive about the EDIW, with 85% and 75% respectively claiming they will use it.

Conclusions

I love grand visions, and this is about as grand as it can get. It aims to address so many fundamental areas of rebuilding a world with human and digital trust. Hopefully it will move the power base of away from the companies that “do” spy on us — Google and Facebook — and puts identities and the control of data back in the hands of citizens. It also wrestles identity away from nation states, and where it could also be used to spy on citizens.