European Commission extends deadline for digital identity framework proposals

The European Commission has pushed back the deadline for the second wave of Digital Europe Programme proposals that includes the European Digital Identity Wallet under the European Digital Identity framework.

The second wave of proposals covers €58 million (approximately US$61 million) in funding to support the implementation of the European Digital Identity Framework and the implementation of the Once Only System under the Single Digital Gateway Regulation, along with the deployment of services for European blockchain services infrastructure, blockchain standardization, and artificial intelligence (AI)-based pilots to aid law enforcement. Originally scheduled to end on May 17, 2022, the new deadline is August 17, 2022.

The European Digital Identity Framework portion looks to attain the European Digital Identity’s objective of improving citizen access to secure electronic identity and trust services with digital signatures and sharing personal identity data. The Commission looks to develop and test out tools supporting the development, implementation, and support of the EU-eID ecosystem with decentralized technologies and a self-sovereign identity framework under the one-only principle and the sharing of data between public administrations in the EU under the control of the user.

As part of its scope, it will pilot the use of the European Digital Identity Wallet and its ecosystem; use cases in priority areas relevant to the once-only principle under the Single Digital Gateway regulation; and validating technical references, standards, components, and solutions. The Commission says use-cases may build on decentralized technologies like the exchange of credentials leveraging electronic ledgers.

The second part of the project will explore the implementation activities by public and private sector service providers to merge their systems with the European Digital Identity Wallet and its ecosystem for exchanging digital attestations of attributes and identity credentials with a personalized digital wallet. Such activities would include innovations based on digital ledgers developed by the European Blockchain Services Infrastructure (EBSI).

The European Digital Identity Wallet is a biometrically-secured digital wallet that would allow citizens to verify their ID, access public and private services, and store digital documents in an app.

The Digital Europe Programme is a €7.5 billion (approximately US$7.9 billion) digital innovation program to bolster the bloc’s “technological sovereignty,” through funding supercomputing, AI, cybersecurity, cloud computing, advanced digital skills, quantum infrastructure, and digital identity.

Article Topics

AI  |  biometrics  |  digital identity  |  digital wallets  |  Europe  |  European Commission  |  European Digital Identity Framework  |  identity management  |  interoperability  |  standards