Consortium to run large-scale pilots for EU Digital Identity Wallet

A new program has been launched by a consortium of Europe’s digital identity stakeholders to promote the development and deployment of new use cases of the latest version of the European Union’s digital identity framework. That means operating large-scale pilots for the European Digital Identity Wallet.

Digital Credentials for Europe (DC4EU) will test the framework’s interoperability for cross-border applications in pre-production systems. Its findings could be used to inform future revisions to eIDAS regulations, according to a funding announcement.

Digital identity wallet testing will look at Qualified Electronic Attestations of Attributes (QEAA), Electronic Attestations of Attributes (EAA) and credentials. The use cases tested will include the sharing of educational credentials, professional qualifications, the PDA1 European Social Security Pass, and the European Health Insurance Card (EHIC).

The estimated cost of the program is 19.2 million euros (approximately US$21.1 million), with funding provided by a grant from the EU Digital Europe Programme. The consortium behind it includes 80 representative organizations from 22 EU member states, plus Norway and Ukraine. Many of those representatives are universities, but some are public agencies or businesses, like Atos.

Decentralized digital ID startup Gataca is also part of the group, as revealed in a blog post that also introduces its self-sovereign identity platform Studio.

The Government of Spain leads the project through its General Secretariat for Digital Administration (SGAD) of its Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation. So far, the work has been divided into nine packages, addressing the different use cases, project management and coordination, dissemination of insights from the pilots and support for policymakers.

DC4EU will meet in Madrid at the end of May to set an agenda for its technical work over the next two years.

Article Topics

Digital Credentials for Europe (DC4EU)  |  digital identity  |  digital wallets  |  eIDAS  |  EU  |  EU Digital Identity Wallet  |  Gataca