The European Digital Identity framework

Two weeks ago the European Commission announced their proposal for a European Digital Identity framework. The proposal is actually an amendment of the eIDAS regulation from 2014. Here are some initial observations.

The added value of the eIDAS Regulation with regard to electronic identity is limited due to its low coverage, uptake and usage.

There is competition from identity solutions falling outside the scope of eIDAS, such as those offered by social media providers and financial institutions, that raise privacy and data protection concerns. Moreover this leads to fragmentation, also because national eID standards start to diverge.

With the growing digitisation of cross-border public and private services which rely on the use of digital identity solutions, there is a risk that within the current legal framework, citizens will continue to face obstacles and not be able to make full use of online services seamlessly throughout the EU and to preserve their privacy.

But the question is how many successful, large cross-border services for which a pan-european eID framework is relevant exist. Sure, there are many global online services that require authentication. It is unclear why they would benefit from this EU proposal, and whether they would switch. (The proposal wants to require large online platforms to accept the proposed EU eID - if EU citizens desire to use it for this purpose, that is - as if to create ‘demand’.) And in any case the Commission itself lacks relevant information as it calls (page 9 of the proposal) for surveys to get information on:

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