Current Trends in Pan-European Identity Management Systems

In a globalized digital world, it is essential that persons and entities have a recognized and unambiguous electronic identity that will allow them to communicate with each other. The demand for electronic identity has grown as a result of governments promotion of e-Government, in which the citizen-public administration relationship often has a strictly personal nature and requires digital identification systems that are univocal, secure, and global. In particular, the European Union (EU) in 1995 launched the Interchange of Data between Administrations (IDA) program [20], as well as Interoperable Delivery of European eGovernment Services to Public Administrations, Businesses, and Citizens (IDABC) [11], and Interoperability Solutions for European Public Administrations (ISA) [14]. These European Union programs seek to foster initiatives to achieve global interoperability between European public administrations in order to offer cross-border services.