Signicat’s Esther Makaay on the future of the European Digital Identity Wallets (EUDIW)

Esther Makaay, VP of Digital Identity at Signicat, shares insights on the progress, impact, and future of European Digital Identity Wallets (EUDIW) in a fast-evolving EU digital ID landscape.

European Digital Identity Wallets (EUDIW)

As digital identity frameworks and wallets gain momentum across Europe, the conversation is evolving beyond technology. It’s now increasingly focused on human rights, privacy, and the relationship between citizens and governments — and on the critical question of who should control our identities.

What is your overall view on the European Digital Identity Wallet (EUDIW)?

The EUDI Wallet will be a big game-changer, because it drives creation and adoption of wallet- and attribute-based identities and ecosystems. The technology behind it allows for very flexible and user-controlled interactions. The biggest strength of this solution is that it can bind a wide range of information and data to a high-assured identity and the person using the wallet. If we do it right, that user is in full control of where their data is stored and who they share it with.

The services that use that shared data can fully rely on the authenticity because they can easily verify it. And this will not be limited to natural persons, but it will include verifiable organisational identities as well, significantly improving trust in all sorts of organisational transactions, whether they are with people or other businesses.

Another very strong and long-needed promise is that the EUDIW will be able to support authorisations and mandates. There are so many situations where you need to represent another person (e.g. a child or elderly parent) or an organisation (e.g. as an employee or intermediary) that currently only can be done by using their personal account or getting yet-another-account. The EUDIW will support a very broad range of authorisations for doing so in a way that is privacy-preserving and can work with many different services.

Personally I’m also very enthusiastic about the ‘mutual authentication’ element. For years I’m proving who I am to all sorts of services by logging in and authenticating. But it’s almost impossible to verify if these services are who they say they are (especially with fraud and abuse becoming more and more sophisticated). When using an EUDIW, the services I interact with will have to prove themselves to me as well (and the wallets will prevent interactions with any unauthorised service).

There’s a perception that many citizens are either unaware of this initiative or hesitant to embrace it, especially when it comes to the idea of having their personal data stored digitally.

We absolutely need more communication on the EUDIW and how this will affect all European residents and businesses. But this is challenging with no EUDIW existing at this moment and many details still being worked on. I do believe that citizens need to be involved in the dialogues around this. A good example of how this can be done are the experience pilots* that were run with an early version of the Dutch wallet by the municipalities of Amsterdam and Nijmegen. The feedback on practicalities, information and communication are of great value to further developments.

Some European countries have already made significant strides in building robust digital identity infrastructures. Which countries would you identify as leaders or ‘champions’ in this space, and what common traits or strategies have contributed to their success?

What we observe in Europe is that the difference amongst Member States is directly linked to their level of digitisation in general (and there are many aspects to explaining these differences). On digital identity, the front runners are the Scandinavian countries and NL. They are also the top listed on Europe’s DESI index.

The trick is that a digital identity is not a goal in itself, it’s a means to an end. It’s about usage more than anything else. Usage requires trust (in the providing government and in the solution) and usability. Usability is not just about whether there’s a mobile solution or if you need a smart card reader, it’s very much about how many services you can access with it and what you can do there. A solution that you can only use with the tax authority will be used only a few times a year and people will forget their passwords, PIN, or even how to use it. Successful implementations in Scandinavia show that you need to create solutions where you can use your digital identity on an almost daily basis.

This means that both governmental and commercial services must be online accessible with a digital ID and that a lot of data sources and backend systems need to be made available.

For a more detailed insight, I’d like to refer to this excellent research from Signicat on ‘The State of Digital Identity in Europe’.

What will be the impact on service providers in the financial sector? What could be the opportunities for them and what will be needed to leverage these?

The short answer: all financial service providers must accept EUDIWs for SCA by the end of 2027. That is basic compliance and to be honest quite boring, although it’s really important for adoption that users can use their wallets for financial services. And for organisations that can’t be bothered: there are companies (like Signicat) who can help you check that box.

The payment industry is working on supporting payments with the EUDIW, which will be very beneficial for the financial sector (fraud rates drop impressively when payments are combined with identification).

It gets exciting when you can leverage the EUDIW capabilities in the digital strategy of financial (or any other) organisations: many request documents or data to be uploaded through a portal or sent by e-mail for certain services. These now come from paper copies or PDFs. Imagine the costs saved if that information can be shared through the wallets, which will ensure that the information is provided by the correct authority and verifiably untampered with. Or the relatively simple usage of auto-filling online forms without typos through the wallets (for a wide range of information, fully under the control of the user, without sharing it with the browser).

More opportunities will come from data sharing, where a company issues data into the EUDIW of their users, so they can use it with other organisations (3rd parties or affiliates and partners).

And the real innovation will be driven by business wallets, which will be able to do all these things as well, but based on the legal identity of the organisation (assured on the highest level).

From a practical and policy perspective, what still needs to happen for the EUDIW to become a reality across Europe? What are the most critical steps — whether technical, regulatory, or societal — to ensure a cohesive rollout?

My biggest concern at this moment is the fear of a splintered landscape. With so many policies and decisions being pushed to the individual Member States, we might see big differences in adoption and uptake across Europe because of different rules and approaches. I really hope that Member States can align as much as possible to their approaches, ensuring more equality for European citizens in their possibilities to use digital services.

As someone who attends many industry events and engages in diverse conversations, what questions do you feel are not being asked enough when it comes to digital identity? Are there hidden risks or overlooked opportunities we should be paying more attention to?

There is never enough discussion on privacy and data protection. This needs to be an ongoing topic that guides any and all work, not only on digital identities but on any digital innovation.

 

*Information in Dutch: https://edi.pleio.nl/news/view/c573089e-57bc-45bb-bdde-5d845ff1b8f5/eerste-ervaringen-met-de-publieke-nl-wallet

 

About author

Esther Makaay is the VP of Digital identity at Signicat, a thought leader in the EU Digital Identity Wallet space and the winner of IDnext's Lifetime Achievement Award for her contribution to the field of Digital Identity. She is also a member of the EU Wallet Consortium (EWC) and is actively involved in several EUDI Wallet Large Scale Pilots (LSPs). She frequently shares her insights on the EU Wallet at various conferences.

 

 

About Signicat

Signicat is a pioneering, pan-European digital identity company with an unrivalled track record in the world’s most advanced digital identity markets. Founded in 2006, Signicat's mission is to build technology for people to trust each other in a digital world. Its Digital Identity Platform incorporates the most extensive suite of identity-proofing and authentication systems in the world, all easily accessible through a single integration point. The platform supports and orchestrates seamlessly the full identity journey, from recognition and onboarding, through login and consent, to making legally binding business agreements that stand the test of time.