Welcome to the European Parliamentary Research Service podcasts.

In this podcast, we'll talk about the EU's efforts to update the current European Digital Identity Framework

and give citizens a secure e-identity they can use anywhere in Europe to do anything from paying taxes to renting a scooter.

Want to know more? Stay with us.

In today's increasingly digital world, being able to prove your identity easily, quickly and reliably, is important.

Whether you are a citizen opening a bank account or enrolling at a European

university or a business registering a new service. Currently, banks, providers of electronic

communication services, utility companies, social media platforms and some EU governments already

provide their users with digital identity services.

But in a world of remote transactions behind screens, trust can be hard to establish.

How can you know for sure that the other party is genuine?

How do you even know that they are human?

Furthermore, every time an app or website asks you to create a new digital

identity or to easily log on via a big platform, there's no way to know what happens to your

data in reality. Identity is clearly one of the great challenges of the digital age,

even more so after the pandemic. That's why in June 2021, the European Commission set out to tackle

this challenge head on. Building on the 2014 regulation on electronic identification and trust

services for electronic transactions in the internal market, whose application proved to be

at best limited, the European Commission proposed a new European digital identity framework.

Let's hear Magret Vestager, executive vice president for a Europe fit for the digital age.

The EID will enable us to do in any member states what we can do at home,

be that in renting a flat or opening a bank account.

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