Government eID Projects Need Private Sector Initiative And Support For Broader Success

To date, at least 12 European countries have either developed or rolled out national electronic citizen IDs (eIDs) based on a government-created and -managed public key infrastructure (PKI) or are in the process of doing so. National governments intended eID solutions to not only serve as a secure identity credential to replace the traditional IDs like driver's licenses used today, but also to enable citizens to use their eIDs to securely access a wide range of public and private services. In all cases but one, the services initially available to citizens were limited to government services. As most citizens interact with their government infrequently, uptake of commercial services exploiting the national PKI has been sluggish to non-existent. Sweden was the exception; its government leveraged an already successful PKI that was available to banking customers there, and usage of eIDs in Sweden is far higher than elsewhere — which should serve as a model for future eID implementations.