EU digital identity wallet trials near completion amid privacy concerns

By lauraharris // 2025-07-13

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The EU's digital identity project, led by the Potential consortium, is set to conclude testing by September 2025, involving 155 organizations across 19 countries.
The EUDI Wallet aims to let citizens access services like banking, government portals, eSignatures and mobile driving licenses through a unified digital credential on their smartphones.
Initially planned for 2024, the launch has been pushed to 2026. Major cross-border trials have been conducted, including interoperability tests involving Ukraine and over 1,300 trials in Vilnius.
Critics warn that without strong safeguards, the system could facilitate mass data collection by governments and corporations, undermining its privacy claims.
Researcher Henk Marsman cautions that users are vulnerable to manipulation via design tricks and incentives and that businesses ("relying parties") are motivated to extract more data than necessary due to data-driven business models.

One of the European Union's (EU) flagship digital identity projects is entering its final stages, as Potential, a consortium tasked with testing the EU Digital Identity (EUDI) Wallet, prepares to conclude its mandate by September. Potential, formed in 2023, has coordinated a vast network of 155 organizations spanning 19 countries. Among its ranks are major corporations such as Idemia, Thales, Amadeus and Namirial, all playing a role in shaping what could become one of the most sweeping digital infrastructure undertakings of the European Union. The EUDI Wallet is envisioned as a smartphone-based application that would allow EU citizens to prove their identity, access services and carry out sensitive transactions, from opening a bank account to presenting electronic prescriptions, using a unified, cross-border digital credential. Originally slated for launch in 2024, the EUDI Wallet's rollout has since been postponed to 2026, a delay that has allowed for more extensive piloting and scrutiny. Remote testing began in May 2024, while large-scale cross-border trials took place in Warsaw in February 2025, involving 15 national wallet prototypes and 20 services exchanging data in real time. In May, additional tests were conducted in Vilnius, with 1,300 interoperability trials across 34 public and private entities. Notably, Ukraine also participated in assessing how its national digital documents could integrate with EU systems. (Related: EU collaborates with foreign governments on digital ID.) Potential has presented six core use cases for the digital wallet: Opening bank accounts, registering SIM/eSIM cards, accessing government services, using a mobile driving license, applying a Qualified eSignature and receiving e-prescriptions. All of these scenarios, while aimed at streamlining bureaucratic processes, hinge on the secure handling of sensitive personal data. The consortium has proposed a variety of methods for identity verification, including QR codes, NFC scans, supervised kiosk check-ins and remote logins, each of which introduces new technical and ethical challenges.

Privacy expert warns EU Digital ID Wallet could fuel data overreach

But the initiative has drawn sustained criticism from privacy advocates. They warn that the system, if not properly safeguarded, could expand surveillance capabilities and deepen the integration of personal data into both government and corporate systems. For instance, Henk Marsman, a researcher at Delft University of Technology and a consultant at SonicBee, warned in May that without strong safeguards, the EUDI Wallet could become a vehicle for excessive data collection by both governments and private companies, directly undermining its stated goal of enhancing privacy. He emphasized that placing responsibility on users to control their data isn’t enough, as people are often vulnerable to subtle forms of manipulation. "Even though I think I’m an autonomous being and I make informed decisions, I can be quite easily manipulated and influenced by nudging techniques, by dark patterns, or just by a five percent discount," Marsman said during the European Identity and Cloud Conference (EIC) in Berlin. The core issue, he explained, lies in the motivations of so-called "relying parties" – the businesses and services that request identity verification. Many of them operate under data-driven business models, giving them a built-in incentive to extract more information than necessary. "If the relying party wouldn't ask too much, we wouldn't have this risk. One of the challenges with relying parties is that they have a data-driven business model or at least some of them have, and that is the incentive to get more data off their users," Marsman said. Visit PrivacyWatch.news for more stories like this. Watch this video to learn how the digital ID will control your life.

This video is from the Data Dumper channel on Brighteon.com.

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Privacy expert warns EU Digital ID Wallet could fuel data overreach

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