IDnow Joins €8M EU Project ACHILLES to Develop Ethical AI for Identity Verification

A major European identity verification provider has joined an €8 million EU-funded initiative aimed at advancing ethical and transparent artificial intelligence development. IDnow, which saw significant growth in 2022 with a 52 percent increase in AI-powered verification revenue, will participate in the ACHILLES project running from 2024 to 2028 under the Horizon Europe Framework Programme. The company’s involvement builds on its recent expansion of EU-compliant services, including its certification as a Qualified Trust Service Provider through its joint venture with ESYSCO.

The ACHILLES project encompasses several key focus areas, including healthcare, pharmaceuticals, identity verification, and content creation. Its technical objectives include designing AI systems based on ethical frameworks, developing high-quality data structures, protecting consumer privacy, and reducing energy consumption in AI operations. It’s part of broader EU efforts to regulate AI development, including upcoming requirements under the AI Act and existing frameworks like eIDAS 2.0.

“With ACHILLES, we want to put people at the heart of AI innovation. Our aim is to ensure that every technology not only performs well, but is also transparent and ethical, to inspire trust in the long term,” states André Carreiro, Project Coordinator and Researcher at Fraunhofer AICOS.

IDnow’s specific contributions will center on creating synthetic, representative data and optimizing data annotation processes to achieve reliable results with minimal human intervention. This approach follows recent advances in synthetic face generation technology, which has shown promise in creating diverse training datasets while protecting privacy. The company will also evaluate ACHILLES innovations in real-world identity verification scenarios.

“Thanks to the ACHILLES project, we hope not only to improve the quality and robustness of our algorithms, but also to reduce dependence on real data,” explained Montaser Awal, Director of Research at IDnow. “This represents a major step toward more sustainable and regulatory-compliant AI.”

The project timeline includes defining use cases and initiating technical development in 2024-2025, followed by continued development and assessment through 2026. The final two years will focus on implementation and evaluation of solutions across various sectors. Initial results are expected in 2026.

The initiative aims to deliver several key outcomes, including enhanced algorithm robustness, decreased reliance on real data, and improved sustainability and regulatory compliance in AI applications. These goals are particularly relevant as the EU continues to strengthen its digital identity framework, transitioning from eIDAS to the more comprehensive EUDI wallet initiative. The project will provide an integrated development environment for efficient, trustworthy AI systems while addressing challenges in both efficiency and trust through practical applications.

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January 20, 2025 – by the ID Tech Editorial Team