How eIDAS Enables Participative Democracy in the EU

In the last few decades, we have seen more countries adopt a democratic form of government than ever before in history. For the most part though, citizens do not directly participate in day-to-day governance but rather elect representatives like Members of Parliament or Senators to do that in their stead. These MPs decide on the most important topics for society, which are subsequently debated and legislation may follow.

Historically, the main reason for this representative form of democracy was that it was prohibitively expensive and time-consuming to conduct nationwide referendums to decide on various issues. However, modern technology has greatly alleviated some of these restrictions and led to the creation of initiatives like the ECI, short for the European Citizen’s Initiative.

What is the ECI?

The European Citizen’s Initiative is a participatory democracy instrument that allows European citizens to suggest legislation to the European Commission. The Commission must obviously have the power to legislate on such matters in the first place (trade, agriculture, environment, energy, etc, are some such examples). Certain minimum thresholds are required to submit a proposal, such as one million signatures from at least seven member states. The exact specifics and minimum requirements may be found at this link.

Once a citizen’s initiative crosses the minimum thresholds, the Commission must carefully examine it within three months. This includes a process of meeting the organizers of the initiative, holding a public hearing in the European Parliament where the organizers can put forth their arguments, and finally, a formal response from the Commission along with the rationale for their decision. Some such successful initiatives are detailed here.

The role of eIDAS in enabling ECI

To enable something like the ECI is a significant technical challenge. The solution must provide scalability to enable millions of signatories to participate, must be cost-effective to use, should provide the necessary level of security, and should be portable across platforms and easily integrated into various front-end solutions.

The identification and authentication tools provided by eIDAS address all of these challenges. Additionally, eIDAS covers the legal aspects of digital identification tools across all EU member states, is more user-friendly and provides on-the-spot validation. eIDAS can ensure that there are no issues like double voting and that each voter, indeed, is who he claims to be. A fully digital platform can make it easier for EU citizens to access the European Parliament.

Conclusion

The eIDAS Directive aims to provide the most technically secure and legally sound method of identification and authentication on a large scale and at a reasonable cost. It is a perfect tool for initiatives like ECI to use the eIDAS framework in order to achieve its goal in the most efficient and cost-effective manner. This would go a long way toward ensuring that ECI gets the widespread adoption that it deserves and becomes a positive enabler for participative democracy across the EU.

References and Further Reading

REGULATION (EU) No 910/2014 on electronic identification and trust services for electronic transactions in the internal market and repealing Directive 1999/93/EC (2014) by the European Parliament and the European Commission

eIDAS & 4th Anti-Money Laundering Directive - a short update (2017), by Andrea Servida
Directive (EU) 2015/849 on the prevention of the use of the financial system for the purposes of money laundering or terrorist financing (2015), by the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union
INCEPTION IMPACT ASSESSMENT European Social Security Number (11/2017), by the European Commission
Directive 2009/102/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 September 2009 in the area of company law on single-member private limited liability companies (2009), by the European Parliament and the European Council

Selected articles eIDAS (2014-today), by Gaurav Sharma, Guillaume Forget, Stefan Hansen, Michal Tabor , Peter Landrock, Torben Pedersen, Dawn M. Turner, and more

Selected articles on Electronic Signing and Digital Signatures (2014-today), by Ashiq JA, Guillaume Forget, Jan Kjaersgaard , Peter Landrock, Torben Pedersen, Dawn M. Turner, Tricia Wittig and more
REGULATION (EU) 2016/679 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (General Data Protection Regulation) (2016), by the European Parliament and the European Council
Proposal for a REGULATION concerning the respect for private life and the protection of personal data in electronic communications and repealing Directive 2002/58/EC (Regulation on Privacy and Electronic Communications), (2017), by the European Parliament and the European Council

eIDAS & 4th Anti-Money Laundering Directive - a short update(2017), by Andrea Servida
Directive (EU) 2015/849 on the prevention of the use of the financial system for the purposes of money laundering or terrorist financing (2015), by the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union

Recommendations for the Security of Internet Payments (Final Version) (2013), by the European Central Bank
Draft NIST Special Publication 800-63-3: Digital Authentication Guideline (2016), by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, USA.
NIST Special Publication 800-63-2: Electronic Authentication Guideline (2013), by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, USA.
Security Controls Related to Internat Banking Services (2016), Hong Kong Monetary Authority