Has Brussels made a legislative breakthrough in the war on cybercrime?

The EU’s new digital identity framework, EIDAS 2.0, could spur similar regulatory initiatives elsewhere. While the UK is likely to take a different path, excessive divergence would not be ideal

An illustration of a digital fingerprint scan

Brussels has moved to strengthen its legislative clampdown on cybercrime in recent months by means of the revamped electronic identification, authentication and trust services regulation (EIDAS 2.0). This measure is designed to grant at least 80% of EU citizens a digital ID wallet by 2030. 

The legislation should pass the trilogue discussions among the European Commission, Parliament and Council in the next couple of months, after which a transitional period will be in place for member states to set up their own processes for approving digital wallets. So says Andrew Bud, founder and CEO of iProov, a specialist in biometric authentication and ID verification.

“In terms of implementation, we are approaching the end of the beginning,” he reports.