On March 15, a vote in favor of negotiating a mandate for a discussion with EU member states passed in EU Parliament. The plenary vote results were, 417 in favor; 103 against the initiative; and 24 members abstaining from the vote. According to the official announcement, the aim is to revisit the new European Digital Identity (eID) structure.
The lawmakers said that succeeding the plenary vote the EU council is ready to begin the development of the last form of the legislation. Amendments regarding the Industry, Research, and Energy Committee (ITRE) will be taken into consideration by the Parliament during the negotiations.
ITRE included in its eID amendments, the standard of zero-knowledge proofs. The intention is, to allow EU citizens to have full control of their identity data.
The European Parliament stated:
“The scheme would allow citizens to identify and authenticate themselves online — via a European digital identity wallet — without having to resort to commercial providers, as is the case today — a practice that has raised trust, security and privacy concerns”
The eID legislative, introduced in June of 2021, aims to create a dedicated digital wallet for citizens and businesses, as well as the “European Digital Identity” in the European Union. The European Digital Identity Wallet (EDIW), aims to allow companies and citizens in the EU to store their identity data like names, addresses, and digitized documents, and data, including bank accounts, birth certificates, school documents, and other documents, all for the sake of simplification of cross border use.