Parliament votes to progress plans for European Union-wide digital wallet

The proposal for a European Union-wide digital wallet passed a plenary vote, moving forward with the initiative aimed at enabling and protecting the digital identity of EU citizens and providing them with digital access to key public services across EU borders.

The European Parliament has voted in favor of a negotiating mandate for talks with the EU member states on the revision of the new European Identity (eID) directive. The introduction of the European Union-wide digital wallet framework will move to interinstitutional negotiations after passing its plenary vote 418 votes to 103, with 24 abstentions, an EU announcement confirmed.

Introduced in June 2021, the proposed eID scheme would “allow citizens to identify and authenticate themselves online (via a European digital identity wallet) without having to resort to commercial providers, as is the case today – a practice that has raised trust, security and privacy concerns,” the EU press release read.

The framework had been assigned to the Industry, Research and Energy Committee (ITRE), which worked on the proposal, focusing on the areas of cybersecurity, governance, data protection, and digitalization of public services.

In its development of the scheme, the Committee proposed amendments, which were passed in a vote on February 9, expanding the European Digital Identity Wallet to enable citizens to not only prove their identity and share documents but also verify companies and other citizens’ identities and documents. The EU stated that this would “give users full control of their data and let them decide what information to share and with whom.”

The EU hopes the eID directive will be a step towards meeting its “digital compass” goals, which include all key public services being available online, all citizens having access to their digital medical records, and 80% of citizens using a digital ID by 2030.

Following the plenary vote endorsement, discussions on the the final form of the EU-wide digital wallet legislation will begin with the Council in earnest.

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