POTENTIAL enters its next phases with confidence
Potential’s second general meeting was held in Athens at the end of April 2024. This event was an opportunity to reflect on the achievements carried out since the project was launched, and to dive into to the next phases: the national implementations of the digital wallets across Member States and the cross-border interoperability tests.
On 29 and 30 April 2024, the second general meeting of the POTENTIAL consortium was held in Athens. The event, which gathered representatives of the Member States involved, partners from the public and private sectors and members of the European Commission, provided an opportunity to review progress on the project, which was launched on 10 July 2023 in Paris. Coordinated by France and Germany, POTENTIAL is one of the four European consortia launched by the European Commission - alongside EWC, DC4EU and NOBID - to test use cases for the future national European digital identity wallets. It addresses “citizen” use cases, and particularly access to digital public services, opening a bank account online, creating a telephone line using SIM card, paperless driving license, electronic signatures, and digital medical prescriptions. Unsurprisingly, the consortium, that brings together more than 150 active public and private actors from 18 EU Member States and Ukraine, has come up against a number of challenges in its first year of existence :
"External dependencies and delays, particularly in releasing the ARF version 1.3 and the EUDIW Reference implementation code, pose significant obstacles and required us to revealuate our plans. As we all know, encountering delays and revisions is not unusual in projects of this magnitude and complexity; nonetheless, the approach we take in addressing them is crucial."
Moritz Heuberger, Technical coordinator of the project
The Athens gathering was also an opportunity to outline the next stages of POTENTIAL, and in particular, the national implementations of the digital wallets across Member States. This stage, which started this June, will require the various Member States to comply with a number of best practices. They will need to identify and equip their stakeholders with the necessary tools and knowledge to fulfil their roles in compliance with EU regulations. The Member States will also be responsible for identifying and selecting service providers and ensure good understanding and integration with the various issuers (government agencies, financial institutions, healthcare providers etc based on their involvement in certain use cases). All within a completely secure framework that complies with the various European regulations:
"The national implementation phase is the biggest step we will face during the project, as piloting, designing, and developing efforts will be needed by many actors. Our main effort is now making sure all of us will be ready for the coming-cross border phase."
Florent TOURNOIS, coordinator of the project
In order to help, POTENTIAL will provide Member States with comprehensive checklists, that will evaluate the readiness of each member to meet national implementation requirements and assess their preparedness to start interoperability tests.
Starting beginning of next year, the consortium will then initiate a proof of concept involving a group of advanced participants, a phase intended to demonstrate the feasibility and efficiency of the digital wallet ecosystem on a broader scale: “the proof of concept serves as a crucial milestone in our journey towards a digitally unified Europe” explained Moritz Heuberger. Aware of the effort required in a short space of time, the consortium is currently negotiating an extension with the European Commission that will provide Member States with the necessary time to achieve interoperability milestones: “however we remain vigilant in managing time and resources to maintain accountability to our partners and stakeholders” conclude Florent Tournois.
Press contact: contact@france-identite.gouv.fr