The European Parliament and the Council of the European Union (EU) have finalized the agreement that will allow the implementation of a continent-wide digital ID wallet program. The agreement, which needs to be ratified at the parliamentary level, would greenlight the issuance of the EU digital ID wallet in accordance with the “Europe’s Digital Decade” framework, which targets the digitization of Europe.
European Union Agrees on a Digital ID Wallet Plan
The European Union (EU) has finalized the agreement that will allow the implementation of a digital ID wallet project in all of the EU. The agreement, which builds on top of the digital ID political pact reached in June, aims to extend access to government-based and private services using a simple mobile document app.
The news was announced first by Thierry Breton, commissioner for the internal market of the EU, who celebrated the development by stating:
We did it! With the European Digital Identity wallet, all European citizens will be able to have a secured e-identity for their lifetime.
Breton also reinforced that the wallet will have the “highest level of both security and privacy,” letting Europeans control which apps have access to their data. Private businesses and companies like Amazon and Facebook will have to implement public identification checks using these digital ID services based on European standards.
What Comes Next
The digital ID wallet might integrate with the Digital Euro in the future, as Breton hinted as a possible connection between these two services. Robert Roos, a member of the European Parliament who was present when the agreement was reached, explained how Breton suggested the future link.
Roos declared that after the agreement, Breton stated that now that the EU had an identity wallet, they had to put something in it, referring to the digital euro, the European central bank digital currency (CBDC) that recently entered its “preparation” phase.
These developments are inscribed in a framework the EU calls “Europe’s Digital Decade,” which seeks to digitize most government services and private businesses and educate a “digitally skilled population and highly skilled digital professionals.”
Nonetheless, the agreement still needs to be ratified by the European Parliament and all of its members. If approved, “Member States will have to provide EU Digital Identity Wallets to their citizens 24 months after adoption of Implementing Acts setting out the technical specifications for the EU Digital Identity Wallet and the technical specifications for certification.”
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