The EU Council formalised its position on the European digital identity at the Telecom Council meeting on Tuesday (6 December).

The European digital identity is intended to create a public version of digital wallets in each member state that can be used to identify, authenticate or verify certain aspects such as age in any other EU country.

These wallets will take the form of apps for smartphones. In the digital sphere, the EU’s ambition is to compete with the identification systems currently offered by Big Tech companies like Amazon, Google and Facebook.

“We are looking at a massive advancement in how people use their identity and credentials in everyday contact with both public and private entities, and in how they use digital services,” said Ivan Bartos, Czech Deputy Prime minister for digitalisation.