Following this announcement, the Federal Council defined the principles regarding the technical implementation of the Confederation’s new electronic identity (e-ID), which is expected to take place in two stages. The name of the trust infrastructure was also announced, as the federal government’s digital wallet is to be known as SWIYU.
The introduction is planned for 2026, and in order to meet this schedule, the federal government is working on its technical implementation, which involves both developing the e-ID and designing the trust infrastructure necessary to operate it. At the same time, the Federal Council defined the principles for its technical implementation.
The public consultation on the technical implementation indicated that the new e-ID and the overall accompanying trust infrastructure are expected to guarantee the protection of privacy and be appropriate for international use. In order to fulfill both objectives, several technologies are required. However, the FDJP's extensive clarifications have shown that only one will be ready for use when the e-ID is introduced in 2026, while additional development is required for the launch of other solutions.
The first stage of the implementation will introduce a technology used by the European Union. At the same time, work will continue on developing additional solutions that could be used in a second stage to meet even higher privacy protection laws, in particular the requirement that the multiple uses of the e-ID will not be traceable to an individual.
At the same time, the e-ID will leverage several measures to ensure strict data protection. An example is provided by the credentials that are only available on the holder’s smartphone due to factors including decentralised data storage, where they are protected from any unauthorised access. Furthermore, users will also be enabled to determine who they share their data with, meaning that individuals will be enabled to use their e-ID to prove that they are over 18 without sharing their actual date of birth or even their name. Third parties, such as businesses or public authorities, will not have the possibility to see when or where the e-ID has been used.
Furthermore, a public test environment has been in operation since March 2022, which allowed federal and cantonal authorities and private individuals to gain initial experience with the federal government’s trust infrastructure before it goes live. According to officials of the company, starting in the first quarter of 2025, the test environment will operate with the technology that is to be used in the first stage of the e-ID rollout. The source code of individual components of the new test environment has been published in an open-source form, making it therefore freely accessible and free of charge for anyone who is interested.
Every day we send out a free e-mail with the most important headlines of the last 24 hours.
Subscribe now