Brussels is pushing ahead with a plan to simplify how Europeans prove who they are. By the end of 2026, every EU member state must offer its citizens a national version of the EU Digital Identity Wallet (EUDI Wallet) — a free app designed to store personal documents, sign contracts, and access public and private services across the bloc.
The wallet is not a single EU-wide app. Instead, each country builds its own, but all must comply with common technical standards so that a Spanish user can, for example, show a German employer a university diploma without re-submitting paperwork. The idea is to reduce reliance on tech giants like Apple and Google, and to give users more control over what they share.
What the wallet can do
The EUDI Wallet is part of the eIDAS 2.0 regulation, which aims to create a single digital market for electronic identification. Users can store national IDs, birth certificates, driving licences, medical prescriptions, diplomas, and even gym memberships. They can then share these documents with authorities or businesses, both online and offline, anywhere in the EU.
For instance, someone renting a flat in Stockholm could show their rental history from Milan directly from the wallet, without using a separate national app. The wallet also supports free e-signatures with the same legal weight as a handwritten signature across member states.
Privacy is a core selling point. Features like “selective disclosure” and “zero-knowledge proof” are meant to let users share only the minimum information required. If a service asks for proof of age, the user could confirm being over 18 without revealing their exact date of birth.
“People should have the right to say no, to not share any of your information or only selectively share information,” said Thomas Lohninger, Executive Director of the digital rights NGO epicenter.
A privacy dashboard will let users see who has accessed their data, and issuers of digital documents are barred from tracking or profiling users.
Security and privacy concerns
But centralising so many sensitive credentials in one place creates a single point of failure. If a phone is lost or stolen, a thief could potentially access a person’s entire legal, medical, and financial identity. A hack or outage could lock users out of essential services.
Lohninger warns that the wallet could also encourage “over identification.” “Things that we can do pseudonymously or anonymously right now might soon become more and more under real name obligation,” he said.
Technical risks remain. Even though the legal framework forbids member states from tracking wallet usage, the app must communicate with government servers to verify credentials. If a country uses a centralised verification system, it could create a digital trail that allows governments or companies to track where and when a citizen authenticates.
The level of privacy will depend on how each member state stores data. The most privacy-friendly option is a decentralised architecture where credentials live only on the phone’s secure hardware chip. But if a country opts for cloud backups or central servers, it becomes a bigger target for cybercriminals and insider threats.
Some of the privacy-preserving technology is still in development. Lohninger described zero-knowledge proofs as “the frontier of cryptographic science,” and noted that developers are balancing a difficult triangle of privacy, security, and usability.
Who is building the wallet?
Three actors are involved: wallet providers (private companies that build the apps), issuers (authorities that issue credentials), and relying parties (services that accept the wallet). The European Commission sets the rules, but member states choose their own providers.
Italy, France, and Finland are leading the rollout. Other countries are at different stages, with some still testing prototypes. The deadline is the end of 2026, but the European Commission has already launched a pilot project involving several member states.
The success of the EUDI Wallet will depend on whether citizens trust it. As Lohninger put it, “If you put all eggs in one basket, then that basket hopefully never fails.”
For more on the broader digital identity push, see our earlier explainer on the EU Digital Identity Wallet. And for a look at how Europe is storing renewable energy, read about underground batteries in porous rock.
