The European Parliament and the Council of the European Union reached a final agreement this week on the establishment of \u201cEuropean Digital Identity Wallets,\u201d the first central and fully digital identification system for all Europeans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cUnder the new law, the EU will offer its citizens so-called \u2018digital wallets\u2019\u2014on a voluntary basis, at first\u2014which will contain digital versions of their ID cards, driving licenses, diplomas, medical records, and bank account information,\u201d the European Conservative reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These documents will be recognized as means to access online services throughout Europe, and citizens will be able to prove their identity or share electronic documents from their wallets \u201cwith a click of a button,\u201d the legislators hope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis marks an important step towards the Digital Decade 2030 targets on the digitalization of public services,\u201d the EU Commission said in a statement Wednesday. \u201cAll EU citizens will be offered the possibility to have an EU Digital Identity Wallet to access public and private online services in full security and protection of personal data all over Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The agreement reached by the co-legislators is now subject to formal approval by the European Parliament and the Council. Once formally adopted, the European Digital Identity framework will enter into force on the 20th day following its publication in the Official Journal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The agreement came just a few weeks after Christine Lagarde, the head of the European Central Bank, announced that the European Union was moving forward with the development of its new central bank digital currency (CBDC)\u2014the digital Euro. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Conservative EU lawmakers and cybersecurity experts have opposed these developments, warning that large-scale abuse is inevitable in an all-encompassing digital identity system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dutch MEP Rob Roos sounded the alarm on X, Wednesday:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBREAKING: Very bad news. The European Parliament and Member States just reached an agreement on introducing the Digital Identity,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Roos noted that following the agreement, EU Commissioner Thierry Breton said: \u201c\u2018Now that we have a Digital Identity Wallet, we have to put something in it\u2026\u2019, suggesting a connection between CBDC and eID.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ahead of the the European Parliament\u2019s decision, over 500 privacy and cybersecurity experts from 39 countries signed a joint letter warning that the legislation \u201cfails to properly respect the right to privacy of citizens and secure online communications.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Roos lamented that most EU lawmakers \u201cignored all the privacy experts and security specialists. They\u2019re pushing it all through.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Dutch conservative said that he is not optimistic, but \u201cit is not too late yet.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cParliament still has to vote about this. Let your MEP know that you oppose the Digital Identity and that you want your MEP to vote against it!\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The European Parliament and the Council of the European Union reached a final agreement this week on the establishment of \u201cEuropean Digital Identity Wallets,\u201d the first central and fully digital identification system for all Europeans. \u201cUnder the new law, the EU will offer its citizens so-called \u2018digital wallets\u2019\u2014on a voluntary basis, at first\u2014which will contain […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":754,"featured_media":38846,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[279],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cww7news.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/DI.jpg?fit=748%2C446&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cww7news.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38845"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cww7news.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cww7news.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cww7news.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/754"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cww7news.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38845"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cww7news.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38845\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38847,"href":"https:\/\/cww7news.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38845\/revisions\/38847"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cww7news.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cww7news.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cww7news.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cww7news.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}