PANEL: How Can I Become Part of the EUDIW Ecosystem?

We figured out that if we sit down, you can't see us, so we'll be standing. Or I don't know if you guys prefer to sit.

After all, that's okay too. Welcome to the panel.

Thank you, Konrad, for warming up the stage. Speaking of other member states, we invited not just Germany, but a few other countries that you just heard about to mainly focus and talk about the collaboration between different countries and what it means and does it lead to success or not.

Hopefully, yes. Let's just start with introductions. Would you like to start? Just quickly, your name, your role.

Yeah, of course. Thank you. My name is Carsten Rosche. I am working for the Federal Ministry for Digital and Modernization, starting today.

Indeed, I have been working up to yesterday for the Federal Ministry of the Interior and for Community. I'm here for Hagen Saxofsky, who is the head of division responsible for the EUDI wallet and other digital identity topics. As there is a new minister, he was very curious to hear about several projects and our wallet and our Federal Ministry of Digital and Modernization. And our federal account for the administration are, of course, important topics. So he cannot be here today and I will try to give my best to replace him. Thank you very much. Alexander? Alexander Bielowski.

I'm working as the lead architect of the Dutch EUID program for the Dutch Ministry of Interior and Kingdom Relationships. And I'm also the test person from hell because I'm Austrian-German working in and for the Netherlands. So I have three notified EIDs and I most probably will have three certified European digital identity wallets. So I will build the system and I will definitely break the system.

Well, that's hard to beat. Yeah, I mean, I definitely can't live up to that. My name is Andreas Freysang. I'm from the Federal Office of Justice of Switzerland. I work in the EID unit and I deal with product strategy surrounding the digital identity we want to offer our citizens in Switzerland. And it's an absolute honor to be here with all of you as a non-EU member state and offer our perspective on something which is going on around our borders. Thank you. I hear there's another non-EU member state called UK in the room somewhere.

So, hi everyone. My name is Christina. I work for, we didn't change the name, so Federal Agency for Breakthrough Innovation for Germany. And I actually have three driving licenses, Japanese, German, and American, but I don't have a single mobile driving license. So I'm waiting who will give me the first mobile driving license yet.

But yeah, let's dive right in. As a warm-up, slash the probably most anticipated question, as we just heard, Germany got a new Ministry of Digitization yesterday.

Karsten, could you tell us what does it mean for Germany UDI wallet, for German digitization strategy? Could you help us a little bit?

Well, of course, I will try to as far as I can. There has been some kind of thriller yesterday in the voting. You may have heard of someone this morning, some colleague said it's like house of cards coming through.

Well, after all, of course, everybody is now curious what does it mean when we have a new ministry which is explicitly working on digital digitization. I'm also curious, I must say. I do not really know what it will mean. One thing is sure, for sure, it will not mean that every other ministry will stop working on that or can stop working on that.

Of course, digitization is something that has to be taking place everywhere. So what I expect from a new ministry will, of course, be a role trying to more concentrate on infrastructure, bringing things together, probably a little better than it has been in the past and things like that. But of course, we have to wait how the real strategy of our new minister will look like. Maybe I forgot to mention that I'm also the project leader for the UDI wallet in my introduction.

So regarding that project, I definitely see that it might give a benefit because the ministry of the interior is a very large ministry and a lot of topics are in the scope. And of course, as probably more or less every ministry of the interior in the world, it's a high focus on security issues. And that sometimes leads to the problem that digitization is not the main focus of such a large ministry. And regarding the wallet project, I hope that it will give more visibility and help us to spread the word better.

When I was asked in the beginning who has heard of the UDI wallet or who has not heard of the UDI wallet, I guess that's not a representative vote here because we know which conference we are at. Out there in the wild, it might look a little bit different. And it's important to get people on board.

I mean, that's what we are talking about here. How do we get part of the wallet ecosystem?

Well, there are, of course, users, there are relying parties, there are also wallet providers, and we have to reach out for all of them. So some focus and also some public attention on that topic will definitely help. And I guess it's not only for the wallet, but also for other topics.

Yeah, that's what I can say now. Of course, we will have to wait for the strategy. I'm pretty sure that we will have some at some time.

Today, it's very fresh, to be sincere. As I said, the minister is currently taking over the lead of the new ministry and is informing about all the things that are going on. And I'm pretty sure that he will make up his mind pretty soon. One interesting fact is that he is not a real politician, but he's coming from the economy, which is very interesting, because the EUDI wallet is not really a digitization project for the public administration. It's a digitization project, which is focusing very, very strongly on the economy. That's also what the EU Commission really had in mind.

So this new perspective might also be very interesting for us. Great, thank you. Then let's talk, well, you mentioned economy. Let's start with a second question, probably. Would you guys, would you like to add how in your countries you work with the private sector, society, economy? Who would like to start?

Yes, in the Netherlands, we have a dual approach at the moment. On one side, we are building essentially a government wallet. And we started that because it's a very innovative project. And we need to also do this to learn how to do this and to learn what the difficult points are that we actually need to discuss with the Commission and with the other member states in our collaboration. And the second is that we're preparing for a open ecosystem for commercial wallet providers.

So we also have a regular board of potential providers of commercial wallets that we're discussing with and that we use to get insights how that might actually be working in the future. But it also means, it only means I'm talking now about one role in an ecosystem, which is the provider of the wallet. I just counted we have some 45 roles in this ecosystem on national level, not talking about European roles that are around that as well, to be filled and to be filled in. Some by government agencies, some by agencies and or private sector bodies.

So we have a very, let's say, measured and stepwise approach to engage with the different organizations that need to fulfill these roles, starting with the core roles that we actually really need to build up the ecosystem, talking about the different registrars, et cetera, et cetera, and reaching out to roles which have a larger number of organizations filling them in. And we're doing this in regular sort of town hall meeting called the meetups, which are public meetings focused on specific topics.

So the next one, mid-May, will, for instance, focus on the authentic sources in this ecosystem so that we get them on board and that we bring them up to speed to understand what does that mean, that this ecosystem will be built up and what their role is and what they need to do to actually participate or provide value into that ecosystem. Yeah, I mean, I think our approach is actually fairly similar in Switzerland. So we have like monthly participation meetings where we give updates what's happening surrounding our ecosystem and how we're building our infrastructure.

In Switzerland, we don't have to follow the EIDIS regulation one to one. We have our own regulatory process and act.

And so, yeah, we have a bit of different function. We're a regulator, but also a system provider. So we give regular updates on that. I think what also goes with that is trying to really offer technical test beds and open infrastructure, open products to civil society and to potential integrators that they can find out what our government's building, how are they building it? Is it really covering what is promised or not? And so that's for us, like open source and being as transparent as possible is really close to our heart. And we think that's really crucial for success.

If I jump on success, I mean, for us, the elephant in the room in Switzerland is obviously we have a direct democracy. And whenever an act is passed by parliament, there is a certain timeframe where the population of Switzerland, everybody who's eligible to vote, they can collect signatures. And if a threshold of more than 50,000 signatures is reached, there's a popular vote if that act is adopted or not. That timeframe just passed for us at Easter. And we're still waiting on the results from the federal chancellery to find out if there will be a popular vote or not.

And then we will see what happens when we get those results. But I mean, it's a core part of Switzerland's DNA.

Also, the confederation knows how to run national votes on these kind of topics. It also has some potential benefits. We write a votation booklet explaining the whole act, which goes to every household where somebody who's eligible to vote gets that booklet. So it's also a potential for us to speak even broader or inform the public even wider what's going on regarding digital identity. That's fascinating. Then I would like to ask you the core key question. How do you work together?

Could you tell us, not necessarily among these three countries, but in general, maybe even other member states, how do we collaborate? What have you learned from the collaboration? Is there any things we can do better, challenges? Feel free to elaborate.

Of course, if you are working on a project reaching out a whole throughout Europe, collaboration is essential. And it's taking place on different levels, of course. On the one hand, we have the official process in getting the regulation we need, which is on one hand based on the normal legal stuff with the IDAS regulation itself and the implementing acts, but also on the technical level regarding the architectural reference framework. There is a lot of collaboration going on, of course, and that's what I would call the official part of the collaboration.

The problem is, as many times, that this process does probably not leave enough room at some point to really go into discussion. So what is also taking place is a lot of bilateral collaboration on different levels also. And I guess that's very, very crucial. Also from our project, for example, there's a good network to other member states with lots of exchange. And I guess that's really important because on the regulation level, it's really hard to define how things really have to look to work together. So you have to bring people together and they have to find a solution.

And that's what we are doing. And that's what I get, what I think will lead us to a really interoperable solution in the end. Absolutely, Kerstin. If you allow me to jump in on this with probably also an example on this one, because quite clearly the Commission has a very, very important role in coming and developing and specifying an interoperable UAD ecosystem. But it's quite clear that we, in the end, it's the member states and our companies in our member states who actually need to make this work.

And we saw, taking the example of the very long concept, the wallet relying party registration certificate. And I won't go into details of what that is, et cetera, because I can, if you want to, after the panel. So you can find me on that one if you want. But this is an example and how this fits together. We had an original concept, which was actually an idea coming from our Spanish colleagues. We in the Netherlands, we picked it up, we championed this. And now I think that's a good way to actually move forward.

We were in contact with our French and our German colleagues discussing that further. And then also went in some sessions to see how could that be specified out there, especially our German colleague took over a lot of the heavy lifting of working, specifying it out, which I think was very, very good. And in the end, we have now an implementing act just passed a couple of weeks back, which actually has this concept in there. So this is how I see how our multilateral collaboration on the one hand leads to solutions that can be adopted up to that formal level.

And down to defining which type of format these specifications should have, et cetera. And now in the next process of actually specifying that out into technical specification, where again, Germany is leading the pack on that one. And we're anticipating of working now together on the next level of making it interoperable. Can we test this with wallets from our member states that also usually starts with two or three, with a bilateral or multilateral approach of actually testing out that interoperability, because this will be the way that leads us to interoperable profiles.

We can write implementing acts or the commission can write implementing acts. We can have standards written by standard development organizations, but in the end, this all will still leave enough room to not be interoperable. And only if we collaborate multilaterally between our member states and between the companies of our member states, we will actually be able to hammer something out, which actually is interoperable.

And I think that includes also organizations and states outside of the union, because the regulation opens that avenue that the commission can enter in bilateral agreements with non-member states so that the infrastructure can grow beyond the union as well. I mean, I can just second what both of you said. I want to stress, I think it's absolutely exemplary what Germany is doing regarding protocols and standards, really pushing this.

And I think we can all take that as something where all we can also, as other states, interact with you guys on that level and really push something meaningful forward. Then maybe just sort of stressing the multilateral level a bit. I think it's great to see the ITU also sort of getting on board and the Open Wallet Forum being established within the ITU. I hope a lot of other states, which might be in the room and who aren't members yet, join.

I think it's a great vehicle for us to push strategic topics really at a political level towards, I don't know, having privacy-preserving technology natively embedded on mobile phones, for instance, and really leveraging also this multilateral, multinational level. Just if I can drop it, there will be a big conference which the Swiss Confederation is hosting in Geneva this summer, in July, the Global Digital Collaboration on, it's always a, it's a tongue-breaker, Daniel, wallets, no credentials and wallets, exactly.

And we have a lot of SDOs coming, we have various states joining there and I really hope that we can use this as a great alignment to bring this whole movement, which is happening around sovereign digital identity, not only EU specific but worldwide, forward. We're absolutely chuffed to host that. Great.

Yeah, looking forward to that one and standards getting stable and final in June, it should help many people. Is there any questions from the audience? There are a couple of really good questions online, so I can ask those, or is there any pressing questions from the audience?

Well, I'll probably start with one here. Are you concerned about the private industry choosing to ignore the entire wallet ecosystem and continue using their own closed solutions?

Well, that's something that we really have to work on to not make come true. Yeah, I mean, in the end, we have one benefit that is probably not, not there in this regard yet. That is that we have a national ID in the wallet, directly in the wallet. Second thing, the wallets, I know, are mostly for showing some QR code or something to pass some gate at the airport and things like that. We are building a wallet, which is truly also focusing on online. Yeah. And that all throughout Europe.

I mean, that's really something big, I must say. And that's why we are so eager on having really a not only a large, but also a good solution, which is fun to use. Because in the end, the user chooses what pleases him the best.

Yeah, he does not really from my opinion, he does not really look at the brand. He looks at what does it do to me? What does it give to me? And that's something we have to work on to to be very convincing at that point. In the end, we do not have an obligation to only have one wallet. Yeah. The EIDAS does not restrict one to one wallet per member state. And that's also something we have also decided in Germany that we want to have a market on wallets, because in the end, there might be good solutions. Problem is, we have to be ready by the end of next year.

That's why we decided to have a national wallet to ensure that we will fulfill the European contract at that point. But we are open for other solutions, of course, as we have already done. But we are open for other solutions, of course. And I hope that it really will also help in not running into the situation you just asked about.

I mean, I just in general, I think industry goes where the users are, or where the citizens are. I think if we focus on really generating value for the holders of digital identity, then the industry will also go there. If the user adoption is there, if I don't need to take my wallet anymore when I get in my car, or when I go and buy a beer, and that becomes a part of daily life, then I'm also convinced that industry will start using this technology.

Yeah, I think both things, I think, is something that I fully subscribe. One side, as Germany does, I think an open ecosystem is definitely an important approach. We need to do this together, government and industry, absolutely. But also the question, I would probably say that the critical mass question is one which plays in there. We only need to have a small handful of good and successful use cases running on that infrastructure to create three critical masses. A critical mass of sources, a critical mass of users, and a critical mass of services.

And once we have this, we have a digital single market ecosystem that allows every small company to run new use cases on this. But usually, if you look at a pure industry approach, you would need to go through billions of dollars or euros of burn rate to create that basic critical mass to actually be able to offer these services. So this is why I think I'm not very worried that industry will not be adopting this. I anticipate that we will have many also smaller innovative enterprises to use that infrastructure to run new business models and new business innovations.

I think it was also one of the key messages Torsten and I were trying to convey in yesterday's keynote, where we said that it's about giving this playground, right, where the public sector, private sector can also work, while providing users the value that we talked about, but also making sure it's secure and privacy preserving and interoperable enough, right? Because that part is, it's probably my personal opinion, but like, I think there's a lot of role that governments can play to, you know, to make sure that playground is safe enough for to be played at. I think we're out of time.

Thank you very much for being here. Thank you for our panelists. That was really insightful. Really enjoyed it.