Tentative political agreement reached on revised EU digital ID framework proposal

Representatives of the Council and Parliament of the European Union have agreed on key elements contained in the proposed legislative framework for a new EU digital identity policy, a news release from the Council reveals.

The proposed policy amends the 2014 eIDAS regulation, which governs public service access and transactions across borders within the EU. It seeks to define how people within the EU can have access to public and private sector services via a trusted, secure, seamless and harmonized European digital identity ecosystem based on the concept of a European digital identity wallet (EUDIW).

Now that the political agreement has been reached, technical work will continue in an effort to complete the drafting of the legal texts after which it will be submitted to the representatives of member states for examination. It is only after a legal and linguistic review that the final text will be vetted by the Council and Parliament and then published in the official journal of the EU for it to become law.

Swedish Minister for Public Administration Erik Slottner is quotes in the release as saying that “at least 80 percent of EU citizens should be able to use a digital ID solution to access key public services by 2030.”

Per the news release, the revised framework places a premium on a number of key areas such as the levels of trust for the digital ID system, the number of trust service providers, the need for a harmonized approach to security, alignment with the EU’s cybersecurity legislation, record-matching for ID purposes across borders of EU member states, and the possibility of issuance of electronic attestation of attributes by qualified providers.

The provisional agreement agreed upon by the Council and the Parliament requires the issuance of the wallet from a digital ID ecosystem meeting the criteria for a “high” level of assurance and extends the list of trust services to include the provision of electronic ledgers and the management of remote electronic signature and seal creation devices.

It also requires member states to develop a common technical architecture and reference framework and common standards for harmonized security, recommends the use of existing cybersecurity act certification schemes to certify the compliance of wallets with the applicable cybersecurity requirements as well as the obligation for member states to perform unequivocal identity matching for cross-border services.

The idea of a universal European digital identity started in 2021 and the objective is for member countries to issue digital wallets under a unified digital ID framework.

This political agreement on the revised legislation has been reached at a time when some financial and digital trade entities in the EU have called for clarification on the framework proposal in order to keep traditional payment systems out of the scope of the regulation.

Article Topics

digital ID  |  digital wallets  |  eID  |  EU Digital Identity Wallet  |  legislation  |  regulation  |  trust framework