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European Health and Digital Executive Agency (HaDEA)
News article27 June 2022European Health and Digital Executive Agency

eID: discover one of the CEF building blocks

eID CEF
(c) European Union 2022

Almost all EU countries provide some form of digital identity scheme (eID) to their citizens and residents. Those schemes provide citizens with access to many public services and allow them to perform online transactions.

Now imagine being a student moving to another country to start or continue his/her academic journey. Exciting, right?

Not so much when it comes to changing address, managing medical prescriptions, opening a bank account, completing the necessary admin work with the hosting university. These procedures can be very challenging without a proper cross-border recognition of national electronic identity schemes.

The eIDAS regulation adopted in 2014 enabled this recognition, meaning that an eID issued in one EU country can be used to securely access public services in another EU country.

The Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) Telecom programme has contributed to the deployment of the infrastructure enabling the cross-border recognition of the eIDs since the beginning. Namely, it has supported the setup, operation and upgrade of the eIDAS nodes as well as the connection of the various public e-services to the eIDAS nodes. An example is the eIDAS node integrated with the central Luxembourgish e-government portal MyGuichet.

eIDAS and its applications: get to know the projects

The usage of the eIDAS authentication is not limited to the public domain. Various projects were carried out to demonstrate how the eIDAS authentication can ease cross-border transactions in different domains such as banking, cloud platforms, postal operators and top-level domain registries. RegeID projects worked on demonstrating how eIDAS authentication can decrease practical restrictions for EU residents to manage domain names in other EU countries, enhancing trust, preventing fake domain registrations, helping fight cybercrime and protecting intellectual property rights.

MyAcademicID and EDSSI projects enhanced online tools for higher education students participating in the Erasmus+ programme, such as Online Learning Agreement (OLA) and the Erasmus+ App, which are now accessible with the national eIDs. Besides enabling access to public e-services, the identity and access management solutions play a fundamental role in the digitalisation of the administrative processes related to student mobility programmes.

Mobile usage and European Digital Identity Wallets

The pandemic has accelerated the use of online tools and services, both in the private and public domain. This increased a need for the secure and trusted electronic identification to access those tools and services. Since mobile usage dominates the current technological landscape, users expect mobile-based electronic identification schemes. To meet these needs, the European Commission has recently put forward a proposal to revise the eIDAS regulation, which will enable the provision of the European Digital Identity Wallets.  

The European Digital Identity will be available to EU citizens, residents, and businesses who want to identify themselves, store and manage identity data and official documents in electronic format. These may include a driving licence, medical prescriptions or education qualifications. With the wallet, citizens will be able to:

  • prove their identity where necessary to access services online;
  • share digital documents;
  • prove a specific personal attribute, such as age, without revealing their identity or other personal details. 

HaDEA launched a call for proposals for the selection of the projects to pilot the European Digital Identity Wallets with deadline for applications on 17 August 2022.

Discover more about eID in these two videos:

CEF eID: Extending the Use of Online Services Across Borders
Meet #eID - The CEF Building Blocks

Background information

The Digital Europe Programme (DEP) aims to build the strategic digital capacities of the EU and to facilitate the wide deployment of digital technologies. With an overall budget of €7.5 billion, out of which €0.8 billion is managed by HaDEA, the programme will support investments in the following sectors:

  • High Performance Computing
  • Cloud, data and Artificial Intelligence
  • Cybersecurity
  • Advanced digital skills
  • Accelerating best use of technologies

HaDEA manages actions under Cloud, data and Artificial Intelligence, Advanced Digital Skills and Accelerating best use of technologies.

Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) Telecom

The Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) Telecom programme is a key EU instrument to facilitate cross-border interaction between public administrations, businesses and citizens, by deploying digital service infrastructures (DSIs) and broadband networks.

Supported projects contribute to the creation of a European ecosystem of interoperable and interconnected digital services that sustain the Digital Single Market.

Useful Links

CEF Telecom Programme (2014-2020)

CEF Telecom Brochure (November 2020)

Details

Publication date
27 June 2022
Author
European Health and Digital Executive Agency
Programme Sector
Digital
Programme
Connecting Europe Facility 1Digital Europe Programme
Tags
Digital technologyDigital transformationEUFunded