Thales Discusses Digital Wallets in New eIDAS White Paper

Thales has published a new white paper to bring the European public up to speed on the latest changes to the European Union’s eIDAS regulations. The original eIDAS guidelines were introduced in 2014, while the updated eIDAS 2 will go into effect in September of 2023.

That gives organizations a year and a half to adapt their technology to comply with the new law. In that regard, the Thales white paper places a particular focus on Digital Wallets, since the new regulation states that every country in the EU needs to be able to provide a digital wallet to any citizens who want to use digital versions of key identity documents. The requirement is part of a broader push for digital transformation in the EU, insofar as the government wants to make it as easy as possible for people to access various online services.

With that in mind, the new rule is intended to promote cross-border interoperability, since it ostensibly guarantees that digital IDs will function in any country within the Union. eIDAS includes additional language that states that government agencies and private-sector service providers like banks and telecommunications companies must recognize digital IDs stored in official digital wallets as valid proof of identity in business interactions. For example, digital IDs could be used to access healthcare, or to generate electronic signatures for digital documents.

The Thales white paper provides additional details about the eIDAS changes, and about the impact that they will have on businesses and individuals in the EU. Administrators believe that people will eventually be using digital IDs to authorize millions of transactions on a daily basis, though the rollout of digital ID programs has been uneven across member states thus far.

The EU announced plans for its own digital wallet app last June. Juniper Research has since predicted that Western Europe will be one of the first regions to embrace the use of digital wallets on a commercial scale.  

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April 7, 2022 – by Eric Weiss