2023-12-07 18:12:28
WORLD – On Thursday, December 7, the European Commission voted in favor of the regulation for the “development of a framework for a European digital identity”. All that is missing is a final vote by Parliament next February for the EU to adopt a digital identity. Presented as a simple practical tool for accessing public services online, the project will above all make it possible to monitor all the actions of citizens.
On November 8, members of the Parliament and the European Council agreed on the text. This Thursday, November 7, 35 members of the Commission voted in favor of its adoption (13 against, 6 abstentions).
MEP Virginie Joron (Identity and Democracy) and Dutch MEP Rob Roos (European Conservatives and Reformists Group) indicated on X that they had voted against.
✅ With my colleague @Rob_Roos d’@ecrgroup which is also fighting against this new tracking and exclusion tool called “European digital identity passport” #eIDAS #IDWallet we voted against this morning!
????️See you in February for the final vote. pic.twitter.com/rv0N5YIjCN
— Virginie Joron (@v_joron) December 7, 2023
The dangers of the eIDAS regulation
With the help of the eIDAS regulation (Electronic identification, authentification and trust services), a digital identity wallet will soon be created. It will allow citizens of the 27 member states to authenticate themselves on the Internet to access public and private services, and to share and electronically sign documents.
Presented as a simple practical tool, this wallet can above all store the biometric data of citizens, which is not without danger.
As Rob Roos pointed out on November 8, European Commissioner Thierry Breton has not hidden his intentions to link the digital identity wallet to the digital euro wallet. With such a system, it would be technically possible to trace citizens’ transactions, and therefore, to prohibit certain ones…
???? BREAKING: Very bad news. The European Parliament and Member States just reached an agreement on introducing the Digital Identity, #eID.
Directly afterwards, #EU Commissioner Breton said: “Now that we have a Digital Identity Wallet, we have to put something in it…”,… pic.twitter.com/SVC5exas9b
— Rob Roos MEP ???????? (@Rob_Roos) November 8, 2023
Equally worrying, the Consortium POTENTIAL, selected after the Commission’s call for tenders to set up the project, does not only intend to manage access to online public services and electronic signature. Its prototype allows the opening of an online bank account, the creation of telephone lines using SIM cards, the dematerialization of driving licenses and digital medical prescriptions.
Presented as a way to simplify the digital lives of Europeans, this regulation in reality outlines the contours of a Chinese-style surveillance society. The final vote for this text to be definitively adopted will take place next February in Parliament and will be decisive.
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