A European consortium, which brings together in particular 19 Member States of the European Union (EU) and Ukraine, launched on Monday July 10 in Paris its work to experiment with digital identity on a European scale, in order to “simplify and secure ” procedures online. of European citizens.
Jointly led by France and Germany, this program, called “POTENTIAL” and which has a European grant of 16 million euros, is one of the four large-scale pilot projects selected by the European Commission to experiment with digital identity in Europe. .
It brings together 38 ministries, 34 state operators, 9 research centers, 51 large companies and 12 start-ups from 19 EU member countries and Ukraine.
test solutions
The objective is to “test and demonstrate the effectiveness of national solutions dedicated to digital identity and their interoperability at a European level”, in a 26-month timetable, the interested parties indicated in a press release.
Among the six use cases to be tested, access to electronic public services to allow citizens to prove their identity in online government services; bank account opening; SIM card registration that allows the opening of a telephone line; or a digital copy of the driver’s license.
In 2021, Brussels announced a plan to allow at least 80% of citizens to use a digital identity to access key public services across EU borders by 2030.
Several digital identification systems are already proposed or being prepared by governments, such as the France Identity app, available from May 2022.
“Our common ambition is that, from June 2025, the digital identity wallet becomes the identity companion of French and European citizens, which will make it possible to guarantee the security of their procedures with, for example, administrations, banks , telephone operators, the medical profession, maintaining control of their identity data”, recalled this Monday in particular the French Ministry of the Interior and Overseas.
Source: BFM TV
