Noise
There will certainly be pros and cons to an EU wide digital ID wallet, like eased access to services.
Call us cynical if you want but the last decade or so has shown us some of the risks of putting “all information eggs in one basket”. It’s also true that “making things easier and more streamlined” has so often meant “aggregating your data more efficiently”. Yes we are cynical!
The European Commission has suggested creating a digital wallet, effectively a form of ID, that can be used across all 27 EU member states to access public services or store documents.
The European Commission on Thursday unveiled a plan to provide digital wallets for the EU’s 450 million residents to store their identity documents.
According to the proposal, EU citizens would be able to sign up voluntarily for the European Digital Identity Wallets, which would allow them access to a wide range of public services and store official documents.
What is the idea with the digital wallets?
Officials say the coronavirus pandemic has shown the need to have a way of recognizing paperwork across the 27-member bloc. Diplomats last month signed off on a digital green travel certificate, effectively a vaccine passport, as a means of reopening travel across the European Union.
The Commission, the EU executive body largely responsible for proposing legislation, intends for the wallets to come in the form of a smartphone application to help citizens navigate cross-border bureaucracy
Read the article on DW’s website
The digital wallet “will enable us to do in any member state as we do at home without any extra cost and fewer hurdles and do this in a way that is secure and transparent.”
Margrethe Vestager, the European Commission’s executive vice president for digital