Data spaces are urged to grasp an understanding of implications of the amended eIDAS regulation and expansion of trust services. The digital identity landscape is important to data space development as an “essential building block” to authenticate and authorise requests for data. The eIDAS regulation introduction in 2014 and eIDAS2 serves opportunities to the data space to solidify regulated identification and authentication processes by 2026 before member states are mandated to provide the EU digital wallet to citizens and a legal framework for trust services is built.
EU member states will be obliged to notify at least one eID scheme which explicitly allow citizens to access public and private cross-border services, conclusive of a full digital transformation.
The legal text of the eIDAS2 amendment has been finalised following the latest round of negotiations in November 2023, which makes mandatory commitments for countries to adopt eID schemes, the EU Digital Identity Wallet – due to be readily available by 2026 – and additional trust services. With the addition of four new trust services to eIDAS2 – including, eLedger, eArchiving, remote eSignatures and ESeal creation devices – service providers need to consider the regulation’s impact on data spaces.
It follows in the publication at Centre of Excellence for Data Sharing & Cloud that data spaces could face enforcement to accept the eIDAS2 regulation and EUDIW which will enable users to log into their services and many other services. The opportunities of wallets for data spaces/service providers are issuing qualified electronic credentials to constituents such as employers, schools or authorities and ensuring data exchanged from holders is verified.
