The strongest contenders in the race to deliver a digital ID by the eIDAS deadline include Germany, Italy, Estonia and Poland. These countries have led exciting EUDIW pilots to meet the needs of their citizens and commercial sector as the deadline looms.
Not all countries are proactively embracing eIDAS2 in time to meet the deadline, says Petar Chardakov, Business Development Manager at Ubiqu in a post on LinkedIn. Whilst levels of digitalisation may vary between countries, with developments happening all across the EU, it is expected that every member would have at least a plan in place for a European digital identity wallet by now.
“These countries are falling dangerously behind and that’s a problem for all of us”.
Germany issued the SPRIN-D ID wallet alongside other government agencies aiming to achieve innovation and adopt a common approach to hardware security handling secure cryptographic processes, encryption and decryption.
Italy’s offering, the IT-Wallet, was launched in December 2024 and is live for citizens, confirming their position as a “frontrunner in EUDIW development and production”, said Chardakov.
10 years prior to the EU’s drive for digital identity interoperability, Poland made mObywatel available for Polish citizens navigating secure access to online services and preempting eIDAS 2.0. The system is now being upgraded to allow broader compliance with the regulation amid more digitalisation.
Estonia is a true pioneer in digital transformation, with leading companies like Cybernetica, SK Identity and Veriff delivering results for wallets.
Countries that have not announced plans yet include:
- Bulgaria
- Denmark
- Iceland
- Latvia
- Liechtenstein
- Lithuania
- Luxembourg
- Norway
- Romania
- Slovakia
- Slovenia
The risk of falling dangerously behind for these countries would be detrimental to protecting the ecosystem of online service providers and citizens. Countries that are slow to invest in pilots and development projects put themselves at high risk of not meeting the deadline, which could cause “chaos in the digital agencies of their respective countries”.
Developing wallet systems too late will mean missing the timeframes when other countries are testing the interoperability and technological capabilities of their wallets aligned with the whole ecosystem. Without general consensus on eIDAS2, there will be greater disparity emerging between EU countries whereas the “strength of EUDIWs should be that all Europeans have the same, high-quality experience” cross-border, Chardakov commented.
Moreover, the other concern with last-minute models is the increased risk of security and data issues. eIDAS 2.0 provides guidance on how to achieve safe and trustworthy technologies when they are implemented relating to citizens’ privacy and simplicity.
