The eIDAS Regulation creates a pan European market for electronic Trust Services (eTS). This includes things like electronic signatures and seals, electronic service delivery, website authentication and time stamps. The major thrust of the Regulation is towards ensuring that these mechanisms, when used, get the same legal status as conventional paper-based alternatives - across borders, throughout the EU.

In Part 1 of our series exploring the wide footprint of the eIDAS regulation, we looked things like PSD2, the European Citizen’s Initiative and the eHealth Governance Initiative. However, these are just a few examples of the many applications of the eIDAS mechanisms. In this part, we look at some other interesting applications including Social Security and the prevention of Money Laundering.

The eIDAS regulation is a key foundational stone in the creation of the pan-European Digital Single Market. It provides the essential elements to build a robust and secure electronic identification system and reliable trust services. Without the tools that eIDAS enables, a number of other EU directives and initiatives would not be able to function effectively - or at all.

 A Forrester Research survey found that documents with electronic signatures reduced the error rate by 80% and improved productivity by as much as 85%. These are just some of the statistics which highlight the potential disruptive power of technologies like eSignature and eIdentification in transforming digital businesses.

The eIDAS regulation sets the standard for electronic identification, electronic signatures and trust services. It paves the way for delivering financial, public and other services online in a more secure and reliable way than ever before. The eIDAS document and its accompanying guidelines cover the technical aspects in great detail. But what are the guiding principles behind eIDAS?

The Internet of Things or IoT is a broad term for the billions of connected physical devices including vehicles, appliances and other electronics that can communicate and exchange data with each other. These devices are everywhere and by 2020, there are likely to be anywhere from 3 to 7 such connected devices for every living person!

The EU has launched a number of initiatives to realize the aim of creating a unified Digital Single Market. The Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) is a funding instrument that provides the primary thrust for this initiative. The CEF uses certain underlying building blocks (known as Digital Service Infrastructures) to achieve this objective of providing an interconnected and unified marketplace.

The eIDAS Regulation lays the groundwork for creating a robust digital identity framework. The idea is to provide EU citizens with a secure, robust and universal electronic identification that they can use to access private and public services anywhere within the EU.

One sector that is lapping up the new opportunities that eIDAS offers is banking. 

The CEF building blocks of the digital service infrastructure, as defined under the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) cover essential components like user identification and authentication, communication, invoicing, payment and electronic service delivery.