German National ID – Privacy by Design

This talk will address the STORK project, its challenges, approaches followed and results achieved so far. STORK stands for Secure Identities Across Borders Linked, aiming to achieve interoperable electronic identities across Europe.

Against a background of the EC Treaty which establishes freedom of establishment and freedom of provision of service via the Services Directive (to be implemented by the end of 2009 – including remote aspects), there remain many challenges, particularly in the area of IAM. eGovernment is supporting the single market, and the Council Conclusions on eGovernment (20 Nov. 2003, 14671/03) underlines importance of interoperability. Furthermore, the ”Raising the game” of DG InfoSoc requires interoperable e-identity.

However …. while there is an e-signature directive, there is no e-identity directive. There are widely diverging approaches across the member states for National e-Identity (NeID), and as a consequence the current NeID’s are not interoperable.

STORK aims at establishing an EU-wide interoperable e-identity and access mechanism. As such, STORK is the common ground for other pilots, such as PEPPOL (electronic procurement).