The European Union’s regulation on Digital Identity, eIDAS, is currently being overhauled to adopt decentralized identity principles. The goal is to provide all citizens and residents across the EU with highly secure and privacy preserving digital wallets that can be used to manage various digital credentials, from eIDs to diplomas to payment instruments. Decentralized identity principles aim at giving freedom of choice and control to the end-user. Ensuring security and interoperability, however, will be challenging — especially in the enormous scale in terms of users and use cases the EU is aiming at. The choices made in eIDAS will have a huge impact on digital identity in the EU and beyond.
The so-called “Architecture and Reference Framework” (ARF) defines the technical underpinnings of eIDAS v2. Many experts from the member states and the Commission have been working on this framework over the last year, trying to select the best combination of technologies and standards out of the enormous number available in the market today. This talk will introduce the ARF and explain what architectural patterns and technical standards are adopted and how the challenges mentioned above are addressed in order to leverage on the vision of the eIDAS v2 regulation.
