The EU Digital Identity Wallet ends up in Italy despite privacy concerns
All Italian residents can now digitize their identity documents with a single application.
The IT Wallet is the Italian version of the EU Digital Identity Wallet program, created to “provide a secure, reliable and private means of digital identification for everyone in Europe.” explains the European Commission.
The European initiative was adopted last year despite strong criticism from privacy experts who warned of a possible increase in surveillance and security risks.
IT Wallet: the privacy and security conundrum
From December 4, 2024, Italians can use the IT wallet function to digitally scan their driver’s license and health card directly from the IO app, the Italian public services application.
The project will expand to accept other documents, such as ID cards and passports, while integrating new functionalities, such as the ability to make payments, book medical appointments or arrange transportation.
The launch follows the pilot It started at the end of October and involved 50,000 citizens. Other European countries are currently testing their own versions of the EU’s digital wallet, including France, Germany and Luxembourg.
While the European Union claims that ID wallets will provide citizens with a simpler and more secure way to prove their identity, the continued implementation continues to raise concerns among commentators.
I am very concerned about the direction of the #eIDAS trilogue negotiations. We see a massive attack on key privacy principles in the text proposed by the @EU_Commission and @eu2023es Presidencies. The EU ID Wallet is in danger of becoming a privacy nightmare that is not safe to use!!!September 3, 2023
The Italian journalist Martina Pastorelli, for example, has described the IT Wallet as “the EU’s digital cage, which will reduce governments to platforms and citizens to users, turning rights into concessions and services into products.”
The EU ID Wallet has been a contentious issue from the start, causing a lot of friction among policymakers.
It’s certainly more convenient to have all your identity credentials in a single app, but this could also “allow governments to monitor citizens more effectively,” Udbhav Tiwari, Mozilla’s head of Global Product Policy, told Ny Breaking in September 2023.
The fact that Member States have to develop their own application also worries experts.
According to Bart Preenel, professor of cryptographer at the University of Leuven, “this makes adding privacy much more difficult because it means that every member has to pay attention to this effort and add privacy (protection) to the design,” he told in February Ny Breaking. Features such as anonymization of credentials, Preenel noted, are in fact optional requirements.
There’s also the matter of security, especially considering that data breach incidents have become an almost daily occurrence recently, with medical records being a constant target for hackers.
However, Italians can decide for themselves whether or not to use the IT Wallet, as the service is voluntary at the time of writing.