eIDAS and the European digital identity wallet
One of the avenues it is pursuing is eIDAS (which stands for electronic Identification, Authentication and Trust Services), the European system for recognising digital identities. According to the European Union, it establishes “the framework to ensure that electronic interactions between businesses are safer, faster and more efficient, no matter the European country they take place in”.
As part of this regulatory framework, it has set up three Europe-wide blockchain consortiums in which Logalty is proud to participate. These are:
- Digital Credentials for Europe (DC4EU)
- EBSI enabled Verifiable Credentials & Trusted Organisations Registries (EBSI-VECTOR)
- EBSI Network Expansion (EBSI-NE)
European consortiums on education and social security
The DC4EU and EBSI-VECTOR consortiums are focused on using the European Blockchain Services Infrastructure (EBSI) in the fields of education and social security. Logalty will provide its vast experience in legal identification to these consortiums and help design the use case requirements.
In the case of education, implementing the European digital identity wallet will enable citizens, student and staff to interact with existing education and mobility services in a way that is much safer and more comfortable. This will help further develop the European Education Area and the European Research Area by allowing for the safer and more efficient movement and management of credentials.
These first two consortiums will combine to use the different legal documents used as identification or stored in records to improve the free movement of citizens in the areas of social security and student and staff mobility. This progress is fundamental to strengthening self-sovereign identity in Europe and boosting confidence in digital services.
Digital Credentials for Europe (DC4EU)
The DC4EU consortium is centred on creating a decentralised digital identity solution to be used by the European Blockchain Services Infrastructure (EBSI) in the fields of education and social security. It is coordinated by the Spanish Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation and will see 22 different states participate (20 EU member states, Norway and Ukraine).
Here, Logalty will contribute by offering a comprehensive design of the future digital identity wallet to be used in Europe. This wallet, which will be called the EU Digital ID Wallet, will be a decentralised digital identity solution that meets all the needs of all parties involved in the process.
EBSI enabled Verifiable Credentials & Trusted Organisations Registries (EBSI-VECTOR)
This consortium, led by Italian company Engineering Ingegneria Informatica SpA, shares a similar objective to the previous one and boasts the collaboration of entities from 15 different countries.
Logalty will lend its legal perspective to identify use case requirements and reach a decision on whether or not to revoke the use of zero-knowledge evidences. This enables us to access the EBSI self-sovereign digital identity (SSI) ecosystem, one of the main driving forces behind this technical approach which is putting it into practice through real-life projects.
EBSI Network Expansion (EBSI-NE)
The third consortium is EBSI Network Expansion (EBSI-NE), which pivots around growing the EBSI network throughout Europe in order to facilitate the combined application of the DC4EU and EBSI-VECTOR projects.
It also offers additional benefits such as the TRACE4EU project, which addresses document and product traceability through the use of blockchain technology. In this consortium, we will be responsible for creating the validator node layout in the EBSI blockchains, defining the set of rules required to ensure that it complies with the trust service requirements established in the eIDAS 2 regulations. Thanks to this we will be able to develop key knowledge in reliable blockchain node management and in the best practices for qualifying them as trust services.