How can the private sector shape the EUDI Wallet project?

Private firms are increasingly looking towards digital identities but challenges remain in aligning the private and the public sector in shaping projects such as the European Union Digital Identity (EUDI) Wallet.

Big tech companies are shifting focus from non-trusted credentials to trusted certificate credentials. In the U.S., Google Wallet and Apple Wallet are accepting mobile driving licenses (mDLs) while Samsung is working with the German government to develop a digital ID, explains Giorgia Paola Dragoni, a project manager and researcher at Digital Innovation Observatories of the School of Management at the Polytechnic University of Milan.

“We currently see that there is a great interest from the private sector also in developing digital identity wallets,” Dragoni told Identity Week

Her institution is currently studying 130 projects, some related to the public and some to the private sector.

eIDAS, the EU regulation governing electronic identification and trust services, has pushed the development of digital IDs in the public sector. The private sector has already developed its own solutions and is now looking for a way to collaborate with the public sector. But this is also where many of the difficulties are expected to arise.

“I think that’s the main challenge, the really difficult point to achieve is the business model,” she says. “If the public sector can invest in order to guarantee services to their citizens, the same thing cannot be done by the private sector. I think that our business model and sort of incentive to make them invest in digital identity wallets and digital identity solutions, in general, will be a crucial point.”

The EU envisions multiple use cases for its EUDI Wallet, from storing documents such as diving licenses, travel documents and education credentials to accessing government and financial services. Digital IDs should be versatile, providing access to healthcare and social services as well as telecom services such as SIM card registration and even organizational identities. To achieve this, the European Commission has been running four large-scale pilots (LSPs) since April 2023, involving 360 private companies and public authorities.

EUDI Wallets are expected to appear sometime in 2026. Until then, wallet providers, issuers and verifiers will need to align through regulation, says Dragoni.

“I think that eIDAS is supporting so much the alignment of different players in the market,” she says. “I think that is a very fundamental, we can say a crucial element.”

Article Topics

biometrics  |  digital ID  |  digital wallets  |  eIDAS  |  EU Digital Identity Wallet  |  interoperability  |  research and development