eIDAS: Whether the digital wallet will arrive in two years is questionable
The EU Commission's tight schedule for eIDAS may be too ambitious. A vote had to be postponed on Tuesday.
(Image: Felix Geringswald/Shutterstock)
If the EU Commission has its way, all EU citizens should be able to use a European digital wallet from fall 2026. However, the EU Commission had to postpone an important vote on Tuesday. Individual governments and civil rights activists are criticizing the project in its current form. None of the five drafts presented by the Commission received a majority in the eIDAS Committee. The committee consists of one representative from each EU member state.
The five documents, the draft implementing acts, specify technical and organizational requirements that the providers and operators of the planned digital wallet must comply with: These include functions, technical certifications and protocols.
Alarming shortcomings
There had already been criticism from civil rights associations and experts long beforehand: the technical requirements formulated in the drafts had alarming shortcomings, they warned in an open letter in August.
Criticism also came from the German government: at the end of August, Stefan Schnorr, State Secretary in the Digital Ministry and the Federal Government Commissioner for Information Technology Markus Richter expressed concern about the thoroughness and quality of the technical specifications and implementing provisions in a letter to the then EU Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton.
Together with representatives from France, the Netherlands and Spain, Germany drew up alternative drafts for the implementing acts and sent them to the EU Commission. They focus more strongly on the areas of security, data protection and interoperability, as well as certifications and compliance with standards. The drafts were then revised and the vote postponed.
A Commission spokesperson told Netzpolitik that the goal of adopting the implementing acts by November 21, 2024 remains unchanged. The aim is to reach the broadest possible agreement between the member states. There are 40 such acts in total, but according to Netzpolitik, only five of them have been on the agenda so far.
The eIDAS amendment was alreadycriticized last year. In addition to the digital wallet, the new version of the regulation also includes the topic of website authentication, i.e. the process by which browsers and servers negotiate an encrypted connection. The amendment aims to promote so-called Qualified Website Authentication Certificates (QWAC) by forcing browser manufacturers to accept them. However, the recitals of the regulation emphasize that browser manufacturers may continue to use "their own procedures and criteria" to "preserve and protect the privacy of online communications through encryption and other best practices." Critics, including Mozilla and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, welcomed the addition, while others remained skeptical.
(kst)
