Internet & Social Media Law Blog
Electronic identification and trust services (eIDAS) refer to a range of services that include verifying the identity of individuals and businesses online and verifying the authenticity of electronic documents. Since 2014, such services provided in the EU have been subject to the eIDAS Regulation, which aimed to create a predictable regulatory environment across the EU and ensure that interoperability across different EU Member States. The eIDAS Regulation’s complexity, inflexibility and perceived limitations resulted in limited adoption, while the COVID-19 pandemic simultaneously fueled an increased demand for electronic identification. Consequently, the European Commission committed to revising the eIDAS Regulation to establish an EU-wide attribute-based electronic identity framework, incorporating a government-issued digital identity wallet to eliminate the dependence on commercial authentication providers.