The European Union is racing toward a legal deadline that would put a government-backed digital identity wallet on every citizen’s phone by the end of 2026 — even as digital rights groups warn the technology meant to protect privacy is unfinished and could make Europeans easier to track.
By year’s end, every EU country must offer a European Digital Identity Wallet: a smartphone app that can hold a national ID, driving licence, diploma and other verified credentials and work across all 27 member states. Campaigners say the standards and safeguards are not ready, and that a system sold as a privacy upgrade could become the surveillance tool it was supposed to prevent.
“We are at maybe 50-60% of the technical standards that are needed to build this wallet,” said Thomas Lohninger, executive director of the Austrian group epicenter.works and a board member of European Digital Rights. “The other 40% are not there yet. They do not exist.”