The European Commission (EC) acknowledged the importance of eID in the multilingual and multi-legal European environment. Apart from its participation to the funding of eID related research activities, EC established and supports the networking of eID practitioners through the “European eID Observatory” (EUReID) community, established in its epractice.eu portal. ePractice.eu is a proactive initiative of the European Commission, free of charges and tailored to the needs of eGovernment, eInclusion and eHealth practitioners.
It is universally accepted that currently, the primary challenge for eID is not the technical feasibility of proposed solutions, but the socio-economic, political and human rights-related implications that an eID implementation has, especially when applied in a cross-border and/or cross-sectoral dimension. In order to be efficient in such a complex environment, the collaboration of all stakeholders is necessary.
The EUReID community has attracted already a significant number of eID practitioners from many countries and with many different skill sets. Hardware and IT vendors, academic researchers, solution providers, public administrations, eGovernment experts, and policy makers are all represented in EUReID, the pan-European neutral meeting place for eID.
Being an epractice.eu community, EUReID provides a variety of services to its members:
The EUReID members can contribute to the above resources providing information about their activities and may interact with each other through the epractice.eu blog feature. EUReID is supported by a team of professional facilitators and editors who guarantee the high quality of the content uploaded and maintained.
Already, in its first few months of operation, the EUReID community has analysed five projects addressing cross-border eID implementations and is currently organising a series of workshops where eID practitioners will be able to present, discuss and promote the outcome of their work mainly in the cross-border and cross-sector dimensions of eID applications.
EUReID can be used to locate potential research partners; to learn about eID implementations in all EU member states and associated countries; to identify forthcoming specialised events and policy-related activities at the national or international level.
