Re-Shaping the EU Digital Identity Framework.

Electronic authentication and digital signature are the base components of the European Union (EU) Digital Single Market. The area is regulated by the eIDAS (electronic identification and trust services for electronic transactions in the internal market) regulation that is compulsory for all Member States since 2018. Despite the Member States’ efforts, the regulation implementation has not been as successful as expected. Therefore, the European Commission initiated the eIDAS revision process in the second half of 2020. Based on the collected feedback, the Commission proposed in July 2021 the first draft of the renewed eIDAS regulation establishing the European Digital Identity framework. The aim of this research is to analyze the feedback provided by different countries and sectors in the eIDAS review process (156 pages of material) and evaluate their correspondence to the Commission proposal. The research follows the exploratory case study methodology and we use thematic analysis for the evaluation. The outcome of this study shows whether all relevant expectations of the interested parties are covered by the Digital Identity Framework proposal and the research results are a valuable input for the Commission as the debate over the eIDAS regulation draft is ongoing.